The magic of background stamps

In order to add something special to your card you can use coordinating designer paper, which Stamping Up so proudly carries. However, a cheaper alternative is the use of background stamps. When you look at the two blue layers of this card, you can see what a tremendous difference a background stamp and a little bit of sponging makes. There are two ways to use a background stamp.

1. You can ink it and stamp it on your paper OR
2. You can ink it, turn it the wet side up, place a piece of paper on top of it and run a brayer thru it (a brayer is a little roller).

The latter is the "correct" way to use the background stamp because you should be able to get a better ink coverage. I recommend that you try both ways and see what works for you.

Background stamps come in many shapes and sizes. The stamp I used in the above card is a block of 4.5 by 6. There are much smaller background stamps as well ( such as the one from the post below), which you can stamp with all over the paper in a sporadic manner. You probably get four different small background stamps for the price of one large one, but there are different applications for each kind. The small ones are great for non orderly backgrounds and the large ones are used when you looking to have a distinctive pattern or lines thruout your entire card. Enjoy!