4 Great Ways to Build a Background on a Card

Stampin’ Up!’s Designer Series Papers make me so happy. The wonderful mix of colors and patterns are always such a great inspiration to me as I start to make a card or give me the perfect backdrop for a card I’m working on. I use Designer Series Papers on most of my projects – unless I create my own background patterns with stamps and ink.

In today’s post, I’m sharing four great ways to build backgrounds with stamps and ink. I’m sharing a little bit about each technique and giving you five samples projects I’ve shared with each technique over the years. Some of the products I’m showing on these projects are no longer available, but the ideas are still there. ♥

Repeated Pattern

There’s something therapeutic about stamping an image over and over in a balanced pattern. Even sentiment stamps can become the focal point of a card if you stamp an image over and over in a repeated pattern behind it. You can use a Stamparatus or freehand it (especially easy with photopolymer stamps) to build a repeated pattern that either stands out on the card or fades into the background.

Here are five projects I’ve previously shared that feature a repeated pattern (you can click on any of these projects to see the original post for each):

Sponging/Shading/Spritzing

Who doesn’t love a colorful backdrop with a variety of beautiful depth? You can use Stamping Sponges, Sponge Daubers, Sponge Brayers or Blending Brushes to add a light touch of color behind a stamped image or sentiment. In many cases, I’ve used a template in front of the sponged area (like a cropped circle) and a cut out behind the spritzed area (like negative colors around die-cut snowflakes) to build a soft background on cards.

Here are five projects I’ve previously shared that feature a background with sponging, shading or spritzing (you can click on any of these projects to see the original post for each):

Ombré Effect

I adore an ombré effect when one color hue blends into another. Whether it’s the same color in different intensities (stamped off once or twice to reduce intensity of color) or a variety of colors that blend together, it can be really fun to build an ombré with stamps and ink. Some of these cards are a mix of the ombré effect and repeated pattern, but each showcases how effective an ombré can be.

Here are five projects I’ve previously shared that feature an ombré background (you can click on any of these projects to see the original post for each):

Overstamping

Over the weekend, I shared a Valentine’s Day card that incorporated overstamping to build a background (the card is shown below). To build a background with overstamping, just stamp the same image over and over and over until it’s unrecognizable on the card. It’s really great fun!

Here are five projects I’ve previously shared that feature overstamping backgrounds (you can click on any of these projects to see the original post for each):

I hope you’ve enjoyed these four techniques for building a background with stamps and ink. While Designer Series Papers are always a must, it’s sometimes fun to go back to the basics to build a fun backdrop for our projects. What do you think? What is your favorite technique?

Thanks for stopping by today!

Brian

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