Faux printing block tutorial

Good afternoon,

I have put this tutorial together to show you how I made the faux wooden printers blocks that I have attached to the wooden candle holder pictured below, I hope it will give you more ideas in which to use some of the translucent colours in Decoart's Traditions range.

Using 2.25mm Tando Creative Chipboard the letters and numbers were die cut with the Tim Holtz Word Play die on my Big Shot.

Rectangles were then cut with scissors for the letters to be mounted onto.

The letters were given a coat of Decoart Gesso and once dry sanded
 for a more level surface.

Once sanded they were given a second goat of gesso and sanded again very lightly.


The mounting blocks were given a coat of Traditions Raw umber and left to dry.

With a round brush, Traditions Transparent Yellow Iron Oxide was applied using horizontal strokes, it's important to see the brush strokes and not blend the colour too much as this will give the illusion of wood grain once other transparent colours have been layered on top.

I wanted each letter to be individual, these two have been spattered with thinned Napthol Red and Carbon Black using a tooth brush.

The letter n had one coat of Traditions Sap Green applied and when just touch dry was wiped back in areas using a baby wipe.

The translucency of these colours allow every layer below to shine through, the letter a below was given one coat of Quinacridone Burnt Orange and the spattering is still highly visible.

The letter b was given a coat of Phthalo green (blue shade), you can see the Yellow iron oxide and Napthol Red beaming through.

Archival ink in Coffee was then used to shade the edges of the letters.

Here are all the letters with the Coffee archival ink shading.

Notice that on the Letters, especially visible on the b that the brush strokes from the Transparent Yellow Iron Oxide are now really starting to look like wood grain.

All the letters were then aged further, the letter k was first covered with Black archival ink.

It was then wiped back to reveal the colours underneath with a baby wipe.

Here are all the letters now antiqued with Black archival ink.

The mounting blocks were then shaded with Black archival ink around the edges.

The letters were then stuck onto the blocks with Matte Decoupage glue and given a protective coat of Duraclear Matte Varnish.

Here are the finished printing blocks, they can be used in so many projects as embellishments or as in the case of the candle holder to cover an object. 

Thanks for reading,

Andy