Hello crafters! It’s time for another installment of our Yippee for Yana series! In this video, Yana is showing how much fun it can be to use a brayer with dye inks to create backgrounds. Be sure to watch her video and then give the technique a try yourself!

Hi everyone, this is Yana Smakula and I’m excited to bring you another episode from my bi-monthly “Yippee For Yana” video series! In today’s video I’m showing you how to create quick ombre backgrounds using ink pads and a brayer!

Brayers have been around for years and there are many wonderful techniques out there that involve the use of a brayer. I decided to go back to basics and share a very simple and approachable technique of brayered backgrounds for simple cards.

I pre cut several panels of white paper, I used 110 lb Neenah Solar White and cut them to 4×5¼“.

I decided to use 4 colors for every panel, you can also go with 5 if you don’t want to have any white spaces on the sides or if you want to overlap your ink stripes a bit more; or you can go with 3 colors if you are making a smaller card, a 4 Bar card for example.

I am looking forward to trying this technique on other kinds of cardstock, maybe on textured watercolor paper and on woodgrain cardstock. I’m curious to see how that would look.

For my first color combo I used High Dive, Scuba, Maliblue and Mint. What’s really awesome about this technique and what makes it very quick is the fact that you don’t have to clean the brayer when you change ink colors; just roll the brayer on a piece of white paper and it’s ready to go for the next color.

Stamp used: Hero Arts Something Magical Woodblock stamp

For my second color combination I used Evergreen, Teal, Dusty Sage and Mint Candy.

Depending on the type of paper you are using and the look you are going for you might need to add more or less ink. I inked my brayer several times to get better coverage – and I also always started my inking in the same spot – I started from the bottom and rolled the brayer up.

Stamp set used: Right At Home Script Greetings.

I also made a background using Coral Reef, Melon, Sunshine and Duckling. I wanted to point out that the ink color will lighten up a bit once the ink is dry on the paper. So while it might not look nice when you first apply the color I would suggest you wait for the ink to settle and dry – you will have a lighter color and a better transition between colors.

Stamp set used:  WPlus9 Hand Lettered Hello.

For my pink color combo I used Hot Lips, Hollyhock, Teeny Bikini and Twirling Tutu. Stamp set used: Simon Says Stamp Big U Words.

I also decided to do one more combo using gray colors. I went with Smoke, Cobblestone, Stone and Fog. Stamp set used: Honey Bee Hello Gorgeous

I also made one more panel using purples. I used Deep Purple, Hot Mama, Magnolia and Thistle and I used Hero Arts Celebration Words stencil with texture paste and gold embossing powder, but I didn’t turn that background into a card.

I heat embossed the main part of the sentiment on all of my panels directly onto the background in Hero Arts Gold embossing powder and also heat embossed sub sentiments in either white or gold onto black cardstock, cut into strips and foam mounted over the main heat embossing.

My backgrounds were foam mounted onto A2 top folding card bases (I went with white and Fog colors) and lastly I used Nuvo Drops in Black to add finishing touches to these projects.

Have fun stamping!

WATCH THE VIDEO

SUPPLIES

InLinkz.com

Blog Candy Alert!! Follow our blog via email and comment on this post for a chance to win grab bags and blog candy! Remember to tag your awesome projects with #simonsaysstamp on social media so we can see what you are creating!