Creating Backgrounds

BE CO-ORDINATED

Create Your Own Backgrounds!

 

I hear other scrapbookers rave about their love of papers and buying coordinated stuff and I get jealous.

There's two reasons for this:

1)  Scrapbooking costs money, especially papers and their coordinates - and I have a rightly suspicious husband who knows full well I'd blow our entire bank account on scrapbooking stuff if I had the chance.  Additionally...well...I just suck at lying, being stealthy, and keeping secrets!

2)  I don't have a colour-coordinated bone in my body and my tastes tend to run simple.  When I look at a huge wall of paper choices I have a panic attack and get overwhelmed!

So whilst I still buy bits of scrapping paper for specific projects or ones that I think are kinda cute (or on sale!), the majority of my cardstock is plain white, plain cream and plain colours.  And this is why:

Get prepared!  Choose your ink/s, some itty bitty stamps, your piece of card and even a paint brush!  I also recommend a scrap piece of paper for underneath.

Tip:  Work on a piece of card considerably larger than you actually require - first of all, the off cuts are awesomely handy for other projects, but mainly, it means if you do make a boo-boo, you can choose which sections of card you want to trim off later!!

Ink up your first / only stamp.  I chose a cute little rose, which I am inking with pearlescent beige - I love this colour becuase it almost looks like gold but it's softer.

 

 

I always start at a corner and work out and across from there.  Now the reason for the scrap paper becomes apparent.  You want the design to flow across the page 'seamlessly' so stamp over the edges rather than leaving an edge gap!

 

Gradually work across the page, changing between stamps and colours if you want.  My second stamp is of some leaves and I've stamped them in olive.

It doesn't have to be a perfect pattern, the main thing I aim for is keeping the colours evenly "woven" (ie: don't do a bunch of flowers all together and only a few leaves).

 

 

Now, I'm one of those people who get a bit of a twitch if they see annoying gaps in their works (I don't criticise the the works of others so harshly!).  I found a simple solution for these gaps - dots!

Just dip the end of your paintbrush handle onto your inkpad (I have chosen lavender for some contrast) and press or roll the tip in a tiny, gentle, circular motion onto the page to make dots!

 

And there you have it!

By making these backgrounds, you can coordinate your inks with your backgrounds or more create a background to coordinate with other cardstock you have!

Here are some more that I did last night, they're so quick to make:

 

 

Why not use lots of words?  I pieced this together from a stamp set I bought.  And the silver ink is a good way to make a card that could go either way (boy or girl).  It takes a little extra planning because they're bigger stamps in a variety of sizes, but it's so effective!!

Also - why not use rhinestones instead of just doing dots to fill gaps?  It makes the design fun and a little more dimensional!

 

And this one is very simple, done with one stamp and gold ink!  As you can see, it's not perfect, but you can choose which section you want to use, plus it's the background, you'll draw focus away with something else anyway!

Go nuts, be creative!!

Dani :)