Back to basics!

A friend of mine is new to papercrafting and asked if I could show her how I make backgrounds for cards and my mixed media work. I think it is easy to forget that these techniques, that we learned so long ago, are a mystery to those new to craft so I thought I'd show you what I showed her! I have used Distress Inks for these ideas because they are so versatile but you could use your favourtie inks!

Firstly I stamped a large background stamp with Peeled Paint and simply stamped it on white card. The second image is the same stamp, stamped with clear embossing ink and then clear emobssed. I then blended the ink over the top - it creates a positive and negative image!

Of course you can use more than one colour and so the next two photos show the same techniques but using two inks (Victorian Velvet and Dusty Concord)

A really useful property of Distress Inks is the way they react to water. I often sprizt my bacgrounds with water as it creates a 'faux bleaching' effect. This cpiece of card was covered in Peeled Paint Distress Ink and I covered the left hand side and sprizted the right hand side. Once I was happy with the result I dried it with my heat gun (you can dab it with a cloth too).

My final suggestion for backgrounds today is to ink the inside of a Texture Fade (embossing folder). Ink the side that will be the front of your project and when you emboss it you will see that the ink appears to 'magically' be behind the embossed image which will remain the colour of your cardstock. There are more clever things to do with this technique but as a basic one it is pretty cool!

So, what do I make using these techniques? I have made a little ATC hanging. I embossed a wing onto a piece of white card using Iced Spruce Distress Ink on the folder. I then spritzed it with water and heat dried. I very roughly clear embossed the whole piece, tapping off much of the powder (I didn't want a good coverage) and then rubbed Vintage Photo Distress Ink over the top after I had heated it. I then clear embossed the whole piece again with a much better coverage.

Then I rubbed Black Soot Distress Ink over the top. The ink settles in the pits that the embossing leaves and gives it a vintage feel. I distressed the edges, adhered the card to a piece of greyboard and inked all edges in Black Soot. I stamped the word 'fly' (a Wendy Vecchi stamp, as was the background stamp I used above) on a piece of card and gave it the same treatment as above. I popped an ornate plate and a Hitch Fastener on the ATC. 

This turned out to be a really long post, sorry about that! I hope that you stayed with me to the end! If you have any qustions, please ask, or if you would like more ideas for backgrounds let me know - I have lots of ideas! Have a superb day.

Gabrielle x

 

Comments

[Debbie]

Fabulous post, really informative and has reminded me of some of the techniques I have not used for ages. x

[Erika]

Great project.
Erika.

[jayne]

I love going back to basics & we regulary do at our crop seeing we get new people there quite often.
Love what you've done today x