I am making my first piece of mixed media art and wanted to use printed tissue paper in the background. I took quite a gamble using my new printer because any time you play around with something like this, it’s possible to void the warranty. Despite that risk, I did it anyway.

The design I used was from a class I took by Jeanne Oliver. She’s an amazing teacher and if you ever get a chance to take one of her classes, do it! When I get my piece done from her class I will post a photo of it.

I ironed a sheet of tissue paper to a sheet of freezer paper, with the shiny plastic side of freezer paper against the tissue paper.
The paper was loaded as usual and printed with settings for a regular sheet of paper.
The printer didn’t jam, even while printing over the wrinkles.

Tissue paper ironed to a piece of freezer paper prints beautifully with the ink jet printer.

Tissue paper is carefully peeled off the freezer paper after printing.

The same piece of freezer paper can be used three or four times. I made the mistake the first time of thoroughly ironing the tissue to the freezer paper. It was impossible to remove the tissue after printing without tearing. I had to use the iron to melt the plastic holding the tissue to the freezer wrap.

If the tissue sticks too much, the tissue side is held carefully against the hot iron edge to melt the plastic that adheres the two pieces together. Tissue and freezer paper are peeled apart.

The first tissue print was a bit lighter than I wanted. I removed most of the background color of the file and increased the contrast in photoshop.

The sheet printed with isolated text layer in photoshop printed crisp and dark.

These maps printed on tissue paper are from scans taken from a 1935 World Atlas.

My favorite of all - my sister Donna's beautiful calligraphy of Ecclesiastes 3: 1-8

I’m using a Canon Pixma MX882 printer. The printed tissue paper stood up well when placed on a surface brushed with matte medium and then brushed over with more matte medium.