Gel Press Coaster Gift Set

How to use your Gel Press and stencils to create a fun coaster set with matching card

Hi everyone, Heidi here, today I’m showing you how to create a set of beautiful coasters with a matching card, for which I used a Gel Press mono printing plate.

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The Crafter’s Workshop provided me with some product to create this project. The opinions I share are solely my own. This post also contains affiliate links.

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How to use your Gel Press and stencils to create a fun coaster set with matching card

About the Gel Press mono printing plate:

– this is a soft gel plate, mine is 6 x 6 inch in size (and fairly thick);

– keep the packaging the plate comes in because this is the perfect storage solution (I also would recommend storing horizontally);

– I use this gel plate in combination with a Speedball 2 inch Soft Rubber brayer;

– don’t use any sharp objects like knifes, forks or scissors because they can damage your plate;

– you can use this gel plate for example with your acrylic paints: I personally liked the thinner paints better, but you can try out any paints that you have and see what you like (you don’t need much paint for one print);

– it’s a lot of fun to use your gel plate in combination with stencils, the look you get is quite unique and different compared with directly applying ink or paint over a stencil to paper;

– the results are not (always) predictable which makes this a very unique process I feel, it’s also very intuitive, you’ll notice that when you’re in it for about 15 to 20 minutes your mind will go like “what if I do this“, “what if I try that“, just go with the flow and you’ll created fabulous designs!;

– you don’t have to clean your Gel Press plate between applying different paint colours, in fact you get great results by not removing the stains of paint that stay behind from your previous print. When you do want to clean your gel plate you can use baby wipes (just make sure they don’t contain alcohol or oils);

– you can pull one print and stop there or you can layer prints over each other: when your first print is dry (which doesn’t take a long time) you create a new print and put the same paper on again, layering colours and designs over each other. You will see that you work on several pieces of paper at one given moment, so make sure that you have enough paper at hand;

– as mentioned I would recommend that you have a pile of printer paper by your site while playing with your Gel Press plate, to roll of your brayer for example or to pull prints with. Personally I like to use a thicker paper to pull my prints, but you can use whatever paper you like, try black or kraft paper for example, I especially liked working on black paper. You can even use the paper that you rolled your brayer of on, on a project!;

– why is this plate called a mono printing plate? Because each print you pull is different, unlike prints for a newspaper for example;

– so, let’s get out our favourite stencils and have some fun! Be warned: this is a super fun and very addictive activity!

How to use your Gel Press and stencils to create a fun coaster set with matching card

How to use your Gel Press and stencils to create a fun coaster set with matching card

Step 1:

Since the mono printing process is very intuitive and you’ll find yourself trying lots of things you might not like everything that you create, that’s okay, just go with the flow, you can keep layering until you like the results or start over with a new print. I created a bunch of prints and then choose my favourites to use for this project. I used the same paints in different combinations, with different stencils and using both black (chalk card stock) and white (Clairefontaine Digital Colour Printing 210 gr) paper, cutting A4 size in half before pulling the prints: this way you get different results but all the designs fit together! For the prints that I’ll use today I only used one or two layers of printing.

For today’s project I used the following The Crafter’s Workshop stencils:

Lacy Tiles (TCW735s)

Dahlia Blooms (TCW750s)

Celtic Design (TCW732s)

Onion Blossoms (TCW726s)

And the following paint colours (on black and white paper):

– Winsor & Newton Galeria acrylic paint in the colour “Deep Turquoise“;

– Reeves acrylic paint in the colour “Copper“;

– DecoArt Americana acrylic paint in the colour “Light Buttermilk“.

How to use your Gel Press and stencils to create a fun coaster set with matching card

Step 2:

I have a set of coasters (Pergamano brand, pack of 4), that you can fill with your own creations, that I’ll use as my base. I die cut 4 squares (one of each design that I liked the most) using a 10×10 cm nesting die. On one of the designs (the only one with only one printed layer) I pencilled in a title and then drew over the lines with a Faber Castell PITT Artist Pen. When the ink was dry I put the squares in the coasters. I glued the two parts of the coaster together using Ranger Glossy Accents and I adhered a piece of black fun foam underneath the coaster (die cut 10,5 x 10,5 cm in size) also using Glossy Accents to finish the coasters.

How to use your Gel Press and stencils to create a fun coaster set with matching card

How to use your Gel Press and stencils to create a fun coaster set with matching card

Step 3:

Now I’m ready to create the matching card: I’ll use the left overs from the coasters for this design. I glued strips of the left over prints on a sheet of regular printer paper using liquid glue, making sure that all the pieces are layered neatly together. When the glue was dry I die cut a square using a square stitched die (the stitching makes the design of the different pieces of paper come together).

This layer I adhered to a slightly larger square die cut panel created from some light yellow card stock also using liquid glue. These combined panels I adhered to a white linen textured card base using one millimetre thick foam tape.

For my sentiment I choose one of the sentiments in the Whimsy Stamps “Fanciful Birthday Notables 1“ stamp set that I stamped on the backside of the same white linen textured card stock that I used for my card base using Versafine “Onyx Black“ ink. I fussy cut around the stamped image with my Fiskars scissors and then layered this shape onto the same light yellow card stock that I used before and cutting around that as well. Now that my sentiment is ready I can adhere this to the card using one millimetre thick foam tape.

And that finished this fun matching gift set project!

Some pictures with the finished project and more detailed pictures:

How to use your Gel Press and stencils to create a fun coaster set with matching card

How to use your Gel Press and stencils to create a fun coaster set with matching card

How to use your Gel Press and stencils to create a fun coaster set with matching card

How to use your Gel Press and stencils to create a fun coaster set with matching card

Thank you Gel Press for providing the team with this awesome gel printing plate, I had so much fun playing with it!

We would love to see what you create with The Crafters Workshop Stencils and Mediums.
You can share it with us on our Facebook page, Instagram, Twitter, and Pinterest using hashtag #tcwstencillove.

Heidi Jakobs  

The Crafter’s Workshop Design Team Member

6 thoughts on “Gel Press Coaster Gift Set

  1. I think those coasters look fabulous! I don’t have a gel plate, but oh, the temptation is strong. May I ask what might be a very elementary question? Can you use card stock to make backgrounds for cards with a gel plate? I’m so glad I’ve subscribed because I stay “safe” with my cards, but seeing what you do is planting seeds of daring to see if I can be creative. The seeds may take time to germinate & push me out of my comfort zone, but pushing is what I need. Thanks Heidi!

    1. Hey Teri, this is Cheryl Boglioli, The Crafter’s Workshop Design Team Coordinator chiming in with an answer….Absolutely you can use cardstock, watercolor paper, fabric and so much more. Go ahead, be Daring…you are already creative!

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