Brayergirl's Book of Banter

Watercolour Resist Background Class

My class today over at 2Ps was for Watercolour Resist Backgrounds and this is what I made with my background. I used it to cover a cheap wooden photo frame from Ikea (the type that come 2 for £1!) I thought I would share the instructions here too!

Step 1

Make a cup of good coffee and put your music on! 

Select your stamps. I recommend 'theming'your paper by choosing stamps that go together well. For my example today I picked some sea themed stamps but also added some words (sea and life) and a swirl stamp to act as a filler.

Step 2

Pick 2-3 stamps from your collection and stamp and clear emboss them on your watercolour paper randomly. Leave quite a lot of space, because you are going to 'fill in' the gaps with more stamping later. Remember to stamp over the edges in places.

Step 3

Liberally spray water over your embossed paper and 'swoosh' liquid watercolour in patches all over the paper. Gradually add more colours and water to blend the colours and achieve an effect you like. Remember to keep your colours quite light because you want to be able to overstamp the paper with more images when ready. Set aside to dry completely.

Step 4

When the paper is completely dry, set your iron on a no steam setting and cover your stamped paper with a piece of scrap paper that covers the entire embossed paper. Iron over the scrap paper until the embossing powder melts away from the painted paper. Kepp ironing until the painted paper comes away from the scrap paper easily.

Step 5

Now you should have nice flat painted paper with crisp white images. Take the rest of your stamps, and using toning, but darker coloured inks and stamp over your paper filling in the gaps. Remember to stamp some of the images so that they overlap the white images, as this gives a very nice effect.

Step 6

Now use your paper to cover your object, remembering to sand your joins so that you get a nice smoothly covered object. Try embellishing your piece by stamping more images and sticking them to your object, maybe using pop dots or silicon glue to add dimension.

I hope you enjoy doing this, I know that it's a technique I return to regularly!

Brayering Update

 

By co-incidence, two readers have contacted me with questions regarding Brayering this week (Burnice & CAnne) so I thought it might be time to have a little update on the topic.

The card above is an old one where I have used a brayer to apply Rainbow ink to solid image and Ribbon rubber stamps. I then stamped onto Glossy cardstock and cut the images out and started to build my card on top of some background stamped card.

Perhaps I ought to dispel a myth. Although I go by the name of Brayergirl, I don't actually use a brayer much in my artwork. I think a lot of people imagine I use a brayer in most of my work, but in actual fact you can now view all my brayered cards in one place (a new album called Brayered Artwork) to the left of this blog, and you will see that the sum total of my brayered work only amounts to 20 cards! I think the name Brayergirl (it was given to me by Dymphie) came about because I was in a brayering creation mood when I was looking for a new name!

Here is a link to my old article on Brayering that I published when I first started this blog, for those of you who want to re-visit it: Beginners Guide to Brayering

Maybe with all the renewed interest, perhaps I ought to do some more brayered cards! Watch this space.....

Got Keys?

Then you need keyrings! I've had great fun making these, using my new found love - Bazzill chips! They come in all shapes and sizes and have endless uses! The background paper I used to make these came from the paper download I posted a few days ago.

Stamps: Paper Artsy Asian Plate #2

Inks: Staz-On in Royal Purple, Versamark

Other Colour Media: Coloured Pencils and Ranger Acrylic Paint in Wild Plum (to paint the backs and edges.) Metallic Copper embossing powder.

Other Supplies and Equipment: Circular Bazzill Chips, Sparkle (or matt) Mod Podge (seal both the backs and the fronts with this ) a heavy duty hole punch (I used my Crop-a-dile), 8MM jump rings, Key rings, flat nosed pliers, Quickutz Letters in the Font and colour of your choice, Sandpaper.

Suppliers: For Stamps and Bazzill chips  try :  Stamp Galaxy

For jewellery findings, pliers and jump rings try:  Beads Unlimited (also known as the Brighton Bead Shop to those in the know)

For the backing paper I used, visit: here

A full tutorial on how to make these will be available shortly at Stamp Galaxy in the Learn section.

In addition to the keyrings, I have also made a 'Shrine' using my papers and some more the stamps from the same Paper Artsy plate. This time I combined most of the same elements that were listed in the Key ring description with Alcohol inks to make the ATC background, and some Golden's acrylic paint in Copper, Green Gold and some handmixed salmon and maroon shades that I used to stamp the word 'India' around the bottom and sides of the Shrine. 

The Shrine template can be found here: B-Muse Shrine Template

Mary's Christmas Ornament

I think now that I have mailed this to the States, I can take a risk and post pictures and an explanation here, especially as I don't think Mary reads my Blog. I have been taking part in a circular swap, where we have to make and embellish Christmas Ornaments using Puzzle pieces, or Card shapes as our base. Each of us had to find our base cardboard and cover it with patterned paper or stamp on it (you may remember when I posted about the Snowflake paper I made to cover my own piece). After we had done this, we then sent our Ornament onto one of our partners (we work in groups of 3) for the main focal image to be put onto the piece. Finally the third person in the Group adds embellishments and then sends it finished product back to the owner.

   

Mary's piece arrived from Linda complete with the focal image ready for me to embellish. The background was beautiful, it looked just like a piece of Oyster shell, with magical irridescent colours reflected in the surface. We were all puzzled on how Mary had done it, and she shared the instructions with us:

1.) 2 thick layers Deco Silver paint- use a 1" brush, swirl for fun. I was

going for frost, but it didn't quite happen.

2.) Add a thick layer of gel medium

3.) 3 layers each of 3 different lightly dusted Pearl Ex powders sprayed

with gloss varnish after each addition. I used Pearl Ex Kit III

4.) 2 layers of fabric glue spread over the surface (Other glue that dries clear will probably work too and will be quicker to dry) Leave to dry completely.

5.) One final layer of Pearl Ex and gloss varnish.

The piece just called out for Beading, and so that's what I did as my embellishment. The Beading was done very quickly, within 2 days of my receiving the Ornament. Really I should have stopped there and mailed it back to Mary, but I just got a hankering to make a box to put it in. BIG MISTAKE! It's taken me 2 weeks to complete it and so I am WAY behind schedule. Hopefully the addition of the box will make up for the delay. I just altered a black cardboard jewellery box  by covering it with handstamped papers. The whole box was then varnished with my new favourite - Sparkle Mod Podge. The box was looking a little flat, the Sparkle Mod Podge definitely lifted it and made it more glamorous, unfortunately the photo really doesn't pick up the Sparkle, it's much more dazzling in real life! :o)

Evolution

Just a quick post today as it is my last day before leaving again for Australia. Here's the story - I am making a photo frame for a friend who loves Elephants. She had seen some of my cards featuring Elephants and was very interested in them. I knew I wanted to stamp the Elephant and emboss it in gold but the rest of the colour scheme was proving to be problematic. Then I bought this bracelet yesterday:

   

The photo probably doesn't do the bracelet justice, but the colours in there are Gold, bronze, aqua, caramel, and flecks of violet from the tiny pieces of abalone shell. So I had my colour scheme! Next I wanted some paper to cover the frame itself. I'd already looked through my stash several days ago and nothing was leaping out, so I knew I was going to have to make my own. Then this morning I was reading Kim Kwan's Blog and saw a collage that she had done (co-incidently also featuring elephants) using some K-Ology paper from K & Co which I immediately fell in love with an went hunting for. I found that it was part of the Verbena Collection:

 

Thinking about my stamp collection I knew I had stamps that would create the same look and feel of this paper. So using stamps from Sunday International, Buzz & Bloom, 100 Proof Press and Stampington and shades of H2O's and Chalk Inks I made my own using my own colour scheme:

If you are wondering about the word 'Journey' I stole that idea from K-Ology Peabody collection - which is equally gorgeous! So now I am taking glue, the frame I'm covering, the paper, the elephant and some Mod-Podge and will be assembling the frame when I am out in Oz.

That's all for today. The next time I will post, hopefully I will be in Australia! 

Make your own BG papers (and I don't mean BackGrounds)

I set myself a challenge this weekend. Yesterday I took a piece of the new BG paper from their new fashion inspired range and tried to see if I could somehow replicate it just using stamps, inks and a piece of 12" x 12" paper. It is amazing to see how their papers seem to use images that are almost the same as rubber stamp images that are already available in the marketplace. 100 Proof Press does a whole batch of 'calligraphy' inspired rubber stamps including a calligraphy bird that is remarkably similar to the one used on the BG papers. Then of course, Rhonna Farrer has just released some digital images that are similar in feel as well.

I'm probably breaking a few rules by doing this, which is why I'm avoiding using any real names! Anyway, here is a step by step breakdown of what I did. I'm not saying that my efforts are as good as the BG paper, they are definitely not! But it is fun to try, and I'm going to feel a lot happier cutting up this paper rather than cutting into my precious BG! :o)

First, here's the original paper that I 'copied':

Here are the supplies that you will need:

1. A piece of pale Green 12"x12" scrapbooking paper

2. A selection of stamps that are similar in feel to the images you are trying to replicate. They do not have to be identical, just similar. I used a hessian textured stamp & a Daisy stamp from Hero Arts,  a Ginko Spray leaf stamp from Beeswax,  and a few 'Heartistic Flowers' from Caroline's Rubber Stamps (a UK Company). If you don't have the Heartistic flowers, Hero Arts do a set of small pinwheels that you could use instead.

3. A stipple brush

4. A small piece of sponge

5. A paintbrush and some water

6. Oriental White H2O (or other white paint) - I did experiment with white Staz-On and a white pigment inkpad, but they failed dismally. When are Colorbox going to come out with a white Chalk Inkpad? That might actually work, if they ever do, because of the texture of the ink that they use.

7. Antique Linen & Walnut Stain Distress inks

8. VersaMagic pad in Aloe Vera

9. Colorbox chalk pad in Chestnut Roan

Instructions:

a) Start with your plain piece of green cardstock:

b) Using the Aloe Vera pad, stipple and sponge the ink all over the cardstock:

   

c) Next, using the hessian stamp, ink up just the middle of the stamp using the Antique Linen distress ink. Only ink the middle because we do not want the stamped image to look square when you stamp it as we are aiming for a random effect. Stamp randomly around the edges of the paper, and a couple of times across the main part of the paper.

d) Repeat this process using the Walnut Stain ink, but copying the BG paper, apply more of the Walnut ink in a couple of the corners. 

f) Using the sponge and water, gently soften the distress inking. Be careful not to apply too much water. Allow to dry.

g) Select that stamps that you are going to use:

   

h) Using the floral spray stamp that you have chosen, liberally apply the Oriental White paint to the surface and then stamp up and down the paper in lines. The good thing about using an H2Os paint for this is that you get a pearlescent shine which adds a bit more dimension to the paper.

i) Finally, using the Daisy stamp and the Heartistic flowers that you have chosen, randomly stamp over the paper, using the Chestnut Roan ink, roughly following the same pattern as the BG paper.

There you go! Have fun!

   

Bella Batik

I've been playing with this method quite a lot recently. Certain stamps lend themselves so well to this technique and a recently purchased Stamper's Anonymous Diamond Border stamp has certainly proven to be a good candidate. I've also got an unmounted Paisley Background stamp from Above the Mark that has also been crying out to be used in this way.

A couple of people have been asking me for instructions on how to make stamped batik pieces, so here goes...........

1. Prepare your base card stock. You have a couple of choices here. You an either use plain white/cream card, coloured card or, do like I have done above and use Watercolour card painted in a base colour of your choice. Always make sure that you use a pale colour. I've used my favourite H2O's for a touch of luxury, but any watercolour paints will do.

 

2. Choose your stamp. I find that detailed background stamps work most effectively. Flowers, swirls, paisley etc. Ink up your stamp with Versamark (or any other clear embossing ink) and then stamp over your base card stock.

3. Clear Emboss. Cover your stamped image with clear embossing powder and melt using a heat tool (Remove from the powder container first! :o) ) Make sure that the powder fully melts all over the card.

 

4. Select your co-ordinating paint colours. You can go a bit mad, or keep it restricted to just a couple of colours. Just make sure that the paints you choose are darker than your base card colour.

5. Apply your paint colours. If you are using a symmetrical patterned stamp, you can paint regular sections in one colour and others in a co-ordinating colour like I did on the Diamond Border stamped image featured a few days back on my Clown Card. Or, you can apply them in painterly fashion and blend the colours so that they swirl around the background image as I have started to do in the picture above.

6. Paint over your image completely. Until the image is completely covered as in the examples above. Allow paint to fully dry, you do not need to worry about the cardstock curling as this can be fixed by step 7.

7. Iron off the embossing powder. On a heat resistant surface, cover your stamp image with a piece of cheap, plain paper. Apply your iron on a hot setting (No steam) all over the paper until the embossing powder starts to melt and lift from the base cardstock. You might find that you have to iron several times to get all the embossing powder off of the cardstock. Ironing also flattens the cardstock very effectively after the wet paint has made it curl! :o)   

8. Gently peel back the paper to reveal your batiked image. If the paper sticks anywhere, simply recover with the paper and iron over again. This will melt any residue embossing, making the paper removal much easier.

9. By varying your colours, you can achieve some fantastic effects. I was aiming for a very Indian feel on these ATC's and so I went wild with different colours and different base colours trying to recreate Indian Textiles. However, just using three colours can equally be stunning.

Hope that helps! Have fun playing and feel free to leave a comment if you have any questions......

The Beginners Guide to Brayering

Quite a few people have been telling me that they are scared of brayering, that they have tried and got disillusioned because they can't get good effects. Others have told me that they have gone out and bought a brayer because they have seen the cards that I have created using one. I thought that it might be useful if I posted some 'Brayering Guidelines' for people who want to start brayering and for those who are open to being convinced that Brayering might actually be fun.

Q. When is Brayering appropriate?

A. Brayering is suitable for creating backgrounds where you want to merge colours to achieve specific effects, for example, sunsets, seascapes, random patterns etc. It can also be used for applying colour to Photographic Rubber stamps to ensure that crisp images are produced, or for applying to flat, solid rubber images such as solid hearts, diamonds, flowers etc. I have also used brayered backgrounds to stamp over using darker colored inks and cut out the images to make them stand out more (See example in picture above).

Q. What supplies do you need?

A. Obviously a Brayer, I use a soft rubber Speedball brayer as I find this merges the colours more evenly. Hard brayers are also available but I would stick to using them for special effects such as wrapping string or elastic bands round them before applying ink and rolling them. This is more difficult with a soft rubber brayer because it might damage the rubber. Other essentials include - Dye based ink and Glossy paper. I am a huge fan of the Kaleidacolor Ink pads by Tsukineko as the colours are luminous and the fact that you can separate the colours to prevent bleeding is ingenious! The design of the pads also means that you can used the individual colours separately with small or long, thin stamps (ribbons and stitches?) or even larger stamps if you use a small brayer to apply the ink - so versatile! Judikins Kromacote Glossy Postcards are DEFINITELY the best glossy cards you can use for this technique. 

Q. How do I achieve even ink application?

A. There is a knack to this. Basically you need to roll the brayer repeatedly in short, sharp, repeated movements over the ink pad until the roller is evenly covered all the way round. If you are coating glossy card, roll the brayer slowly over the card in whatever direction you want (I tend to favour diagonally as this hides any inconsistencies!) If you find you have any gaps in the colour on the card, then re-apply ink to the brayer and carefully roll over the paper again and again until the gap is filled and the colours have merged. If you are applying ink to a rubber stamp, you follow more or less the same method, however, you will need to repeatedly roll the brayer over the stamp slowly so that every part of the stamp is covered before stamping. 'Breathe' over the stamp to re-moisten the ink before stamping if you think the ink is drying out during the brayering process. Basically the biggest tip I can offer, is to use good quality ink, brayer and glossy card and you will achieve great results.   

Q. How do I prevent my backgrounds from looking too 'stripey'?

A. Sometimes when you use a rainbow ink pad that ranges from dark to light, when you repeat brayer the stripes, the dark ink can look extremely harsh against the light ink and doesn't always merge easily. There is an easy way round this. Apply your first load of brayered ink across the card and keep rolling until you are happy. Load up your brayer again and then turn your card around and run the brayer over the card again, making sure the light ink rolls back over the light ink already on the card. This way your stripes will go from dark to light and then from light to dark again. If you are not sure you understand, try playing for a bit and you will see what I mean.

Have Fun!