Severnista

Sometimes when sitting down to make cards it’s easier not to tackle a brand new design but rather to produce different styles of backgrounds to use later. Here I show you two different background styles that open plenty of opportunities for riffs.

Last year I featured some finished cards which used stenciled backgrounds that I made months before with a friend. This technique uses a simple dye ink rubbed over a stencil onto your card stock base with an ink blending brush. For this process I like to use patterns that are repetitive like dots or birthday confetti, geometric like herringbone or striped diamonds, or mimic natural elements like feathers, berries on vines, and other floral patterns.

Here are a few of those finished cards.

Tip: Purchasing a Waffle Flower Grip Mat to fit within my Misti stamping platform, stenciling became much easier with a reliable grip not giving way to potential stencil shifting on my card stock and a better finished product. With smaller detailed stencils available and the detailed blending brushes that have followed, having a quick, reliable grip that doesn’t affect your paper medium is key.

This is a simple task for a craft session where you just want to have fun with color and keep the work minimal. By using a simple pattern in the background and varying the ink colors used, you have a base for something more elaborate and tailored in the future.

Another type of easy background uses strips of colored card stock to create a geometric pattern across the card front. Cutting the card stock to different widths and arranging them across the card at a diagonal angle offers extra variety in a basic background design.

You will notice that I often add floral designs over these backgrounds. I like botanical designs and many card crafting companies have a wide range of botanical stamps, dies, stencils, etc. Shapes and textures of garden elements like the ones I’ve used with die cuts are easy to work with and offer great variety. Botanical elements are a simple overlay for a wide range of background styles that you can make.

I especially like this striped design because you can use those scraps of card stock that might otherwise end up in the recycling bin. To even further vary this style you can mix in patterned card stock with plain or vary the angle on your pattern.

When you just ‘play’ with colors or do something simple and relaxing, creating backgrounds to use later is a perfect way to do that without having to finish a card and work on an overall design and sentiment which can often take hours. And having these different backgrounds on hand is very helpful when you want to make up a small batch of cards because part of the work is already done.

I’m sure you can think of many backgrounds that you’ve seen or used in card making.

Which ones are your favorites to use?