ABC's of Techniques...the letter "B"

"B" is for Backgrounds!

 

I love seeing how creative people are with making backgrounds for their cards and scrapbooking projects. I have learned so many new things by browsing the Internet, looking at crafting magazines and just hanging out with other crafters. Today I am going to show you a few background papers that I played with. I tried a few new things...one of them was posted on another website and that's where I learned it, the other was just a random thought I had...may not have been worth the mess...but I hope you like it. I have tried a few very cool techniques that you really should experiment with because they make some amazing prints (sorry...no pictures but I'm sure you can look up the techniques on the Internet and find some samples). Some of my favorites are to put a few drops of ink in a bowl of water, use a straw to blow bubbles (you get to feel like such a kid...so much fun!) and then take your paper and gently put it on the bubbles until they pop on the paper. Another fun way to play is to put some shaving cream on a paper plate, put a few drops of different colored ink around and swirl them with a toothpick; then place your paper on your shaving cream. As you wipe off the shaving cream, your pattern will start to show and will be amazing...no two papers will ever by the same!

 

For today I am first going to show you the technique that I saw online...Bubble wrap! Not only is it fun to POP...but you can use it for some pretty cool stuff (just don't try to pop it after you make your paper-that could be very messy). The first thing you are going to do is lay the bubble wrap on a flat surface and then either pat it with your ink pad or rub your ink pad on top of it. For this card I used the new CTMH Pigment Ink-it's a wetter ink and I felt it would give me a little more time to play.

I then turned the bubble wrap over and patted the ink onto the paper...

Next comes the fun part...figuring out how you're going to use it. I decided to use it as water with the whale stamp from the Under the Sea stamp set. I also figured it needed some bling so I covered each of the dots in glitter to give it more of a watery look.

The next patterned paper I played with was kind of fun-but kind of messy too (but isn't that the best kind-your not stampin' if your fingers aren't multi-colored.)

I was looking around the house for something unique to try and that's when I saw it...

Rice, Rice Baby!!! Oh yeah-it makes some pretty cool grass!

I just put some in a bag, added a few drops of Olive re-inker, shaken-not stirred!

I then just poured it out onto some colonial white paper and kind patted and smeared it around a bit, be sure to wear gloves-otherwise your hands will be the color of your rice!

I'm sorry that the pictures aren't the greatest for details, between my camera and the lack of lighting in my house...my pictures are all pretty lacking.

Here is my finished project with the A Tree and Card Chatter-Sympathy stamp sets.

Thanks for looking and be sure to come back for the letter "C" so you can find out what a blond crafter I am. I have been paper crafting for YEARS...and had no idea you could do this until I joined CTMH. It is so simple and I am sure you all know how to do it...but come and share in my being oblivious :)