Are you ready for May already? Wasn’t it just January? Cheryl Boglioli here today to share a quick easy way to add color and fun to your paper planner. I like to keep my planner fairly simple and with plenty of open space so I can actually use it to write in, but I love to add color. Gel Press plates make this easy and fun. I wanted a simple festive design this month since it’s my daughter’s birthday and my anniversary with dear hubby. There will be lots more written in here, but I’m showing you basically ‘before the pen’.
Planner pages are usually thinner paper. Therefore, inks, paints and many pens will bleed through those pages. Adding a thin coat of clear gesso helps to prevent this. Using an 8×10 Gel Press plate to transfer a thin layer of clear gesso to my pages is easy and keeps my pages from rolling up as I try to add the gesso. It’s also super fast and keeps the thin layer even across the entire page.
Start by smoothing out a thin layer of gesso on your 8×10 Gel Press plate and then lay down your planner page. It helps to place another clean piece of copy paper over your planner page to prevent transfer to the backside of your pages. You’ll notice I started with a plate that wasn’t perfectly clean; I like those little bits of color that transfer over! Make sure to wipe your Gel Press plate clean after using any types of gesso. Since gesso has a bit of a grit to it, we suggest you do clean this off.
Allow your gesso to completely dry and then you can add any inks and paints to your pages. I chose this time to use my small petite Gel Press plates in the rectangle and circle shapes to add color and design to my pages. I also purposely chose colors that are transparent to semi-transparent and I suggest you do the same for your planner. This allows you to add some color, yet you can still see through the print/writing under as well as easily write over these colors. Notice the new color layers where they overlap – another bonus of using transparent to semi-transparent colors! Since you added thin layers of colors, these pages dry super fast!
After your paint has dried, now use any of your pens to add doodles, important dates and more. This is a super quick project anyone can do. You can create your own pages with as much color and detail as you would like. Share yours with us.
Thanks for visiting today.
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Cheryl Boglioli
