I made this card to demonstrate to one of my lovely stamping ladies, who had found a brayered card she wanted to CASE. She was all set to give up and sponge instead, after having no luck on her first couple of test pieces so I showed her a couple of tricks. I'm not pretending this is a proper tutorial, you can follow the link to another Michelle above for that! But - here are my top tips:
1. Use Glossy White cardstock - it has a surface that takes in ink a little bit more slowly than Whisper White, which seems to give a more even result. Find it on p160, 106555, $9.95 for 25 sheets (see, cheap too!)
2. Make sure the surface is very, very flat. No tiny bits of cardstock or ribbon snippets, no paper edges under your cardstock, just flat smoothness.
3. Choose your colours, lighter is better than darker, you can get a darker result by layering and building the colour gradually. Two colours will blend in the intersection to create a gradient.
4. Use a Speedball Brayer (102395, $21.95 - p179 of the catalogue) - and store it roller side up (or hang it) - this will help prevent a flat spot or dent from developing on the roller.
5. Use a nice juicy inkpad, reink beforehand if necessary. Use a flicking wrist motion to ink up the roller, sort of spinning it between passes, to build up a layer of ink without obvious lines.
6. Using a piece of grid paper underneath, start brayering completely off the piece of glossy cardstock, and super quickly and firmly begin rolling back and forth over the piece, keep going, keep going, more, more - moving down bit by bit. Reink the roller, repeat!
7. Don't discard the piece even if you think it is a dodgy one, sometimes the colours will mellow as they dry and what looks shocking will turn out just fine! Also, you can always over stamp in places where you're not happy, and the final card will look amaaaaaaazzzzinggg! (promise!)
8. Practice! It always seems to take a bit of re-learning each time I do it, remember it's only paper, and you can use scrap white paper to 'get your eye' back in to begin with.
On the card above, I have stamped the tree from Forever Young (p116, from $35.95), using Stazon Black ink. A length of (retired) Pear Pizzazz seam binding went across a dodgy bit (see, you'd never know!), and I finished it with a bottle cap.
WOT!?? A bottle cap?? Yes, they're baaaaacccckkkkkk!! They come in two sizes, and are a lovely chrome finish, $6.95 on p24 of the Anniversary Seasonal Catalogue. I even used my old trick of smooshing it a bit flatter on my ancient red sizzix machine. Inside it I have used the co-ordinating Collage Curios set (from $28.95, p24 ), and a sentiment from Itty Bitty Banners (from $21.95, p134 Annual Catty) All done! Hope this inspires you to dig out your brayer, and if you don't have a nice one, give me a call to place your order!
In other news, Sale-a-bration is nearly over! (Gee, that has gone FAST!) It ends BEFORE the end of March this year, due to Easter being early. LAST DAY 22nd March. Don't miss your chance to select from a great range of free stuff. I also want at least one more person to join me and my StampInkPaper team - it's so much fun, and there is so much extra value packed into the kit at this special time of the year - choose $294 worth of goodies, pay just $169, and get a business supplies kit worth about $80 as well! Just give me a call to discuss, 0403 175 790.
And, I have gotten myself quite organised, and planned the next batch of Stampin' Crop dates:
Saturday 9th March (yep, this Saturday coming)
Saturday 20th April
Saturday 18th May
Saturday 15th June
Saturday 20th July
I'll post them up on the Google calendar soon, better get to bed in case I get a call to teach again tomorrow :) I've also got a fun Off the Page class coming up, stay tuned!
1 comment:
It is spectacular Michelle. Gorjus card...do like this set. Ta for the tips.
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