Designing Background Scrapbook Paper with Clear Rubber Stamps

Some of the most fun I have is decorating my own coordinating background papers for my scrapbooking and card making projects. It is really very simple and easy to do.

• Choose your coordinating rubber stamp or stamps
• Choose an ink color
• Follow the instructions in Making Decorative Background Paper for Scrapbooking and Card Making Projects
• Paper can easily be embellish with glitter or embossing techniques.
• Use your paper as you would any purchased pattern paper.

Making your own background paper will always produce the perfect colors and depth for your own personal projects because you put it all together. Everything matches and contrasts just like you want it to.

Advantages to making your own pattern paper

• All your elements complement each other
• You don’t have to decorate more paper than you need for the project which saves paper for other ideas
• Colors in your background paper will definitely match the stamping you are doing for sentiments or other key elements
• No one else will ever have the same look in their background paper because only you designed it.
• Your background paper can develop and enhance the theme you want

Stamping on Watercolors

A short time ago I took a watercolor painting class. In this class we used watered down watercolor paints in spray bottles. As you spray the primary colors onto our watercolor paper the colors blend to create the completed rainbow effect. Once the backdrop dried I decided I could probably finish the picture by stamping elements found in my nature clear rubber stamps. The theme I was aiming for is stamped in mini alphabet letters for a completed project.

As you can see, there is no limit to the background possibilities that can be created using simple water colors and nature clear stamps.

Happy Stamping!

Rubber Stamping on Easter Eggs

Rubber stamping on Easter Eggs has endless creative possibilities for Easter decorations and fun. I got this idea from a craft book that pictured a basic rubber stamped egg but it didn’t give any real instructions. I decided it would be fun to try it and share my results with everyone for Easter. First here is a picture of my colorful Easter eggs that I stamped on.

I didn’t use the traditional store bought Easter Egg coloring kits. I used food coloring, vinegar and water. (I didn’t measure but I think it was equal parts of vinegar and water). I put in lots of food coloring.  When the eggs came out they were beautiful solid shades but as they dried they became mottled. I don’t know why but I liked the look.

Clear stamps are ideal for stamping on Easter eggs because you are not stamping on a flat surface and you can actually see which parts of the clear stamp has left its impression on the egg. This is very important to be able to make great designs.

Once you have colored your eggs be sure that they egg are completely dry and at room temperature before try rubber stamping on them. My eggs had been refrigerated and as they warmed up they had moisture condensing in places. As a result I had dye all over my fingers and it affected the crispness of the image in a few places as well.  Hopefully having your eggs at room temperature will keep colors from running and messing up your designs. If you chose to use hollow eggs you should not have any problems at all.

Some of the rubber stamping techniques you can try include stamping in embossing ink and heat embossing the design. I found that I really had to heat it up a fair bit before the embossing powder melted, but I love the effect it left. I stamped black butterfly images around for more variety though keeping to my chosen butterfly theme.

Rubber stamping with pigment inks was my favorite rubber stamping technique for Easter eggs!! You do have to be careful because if the ink is not completely dry and you touch it, it will smear. However, this was the easiest and funnest way to add lines, borders and detailed images to my eggs.

Once I was done stamping, I finished off each egg with a few craft gems glued on with craft glue for a little extra glitter and glitz. All in all the project was only moderately difficult and a lot of fun. I have never had so much fun decorating Easter Eggs!