Card Making - How to Paint Your Own Backing Papers - Part 2

Part One described how to use pre-stretched paper and acrylic paints to paint backing paper for card making. This article looks at ways to make your backing papers even more individual.

Use Acrylic Mediums

There are acrylic mediums that can be added to the acrylic paint to extend the range of effects you can achieve. The acrylic mediums can make the paint dry to a glossy or matt finish. Other mediums can give beautiful metallic effects or add textures like sand or small glass beads.

(The metallic mediums are especially effective on dark colours.)

There are a wide range of acrylic mediums that you can use. Be sure to check out the range I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised!

Apply the Paint without a Brush

You could also try applying the paint with crumpled paper towel or thin plastic for a random textured finish.

You can paint your backing paper to co-ordinate with your other card making materials which will save you both -

* time spent looking for just the ‘right’ paper
* money as you can use the paints that you already have.

Rip instead of Cut

Another idea is instead of cutting the backing paper you could rip the background paper for a different look.

You’ll find that ripping towards yourself will give a different effect compared to when you rip away from yourself.

The size and shape of the exposed edge will be different. On dark coloured surfaces exposing the white ‘centre of the paper’ will give a white border that can be very pleasing.

This all adds to the variety of effects you can achieve. This is a great way to make your cards individual and special, so that they stand out from the crowd.

Card Making – How to Paint Your Own Backing Papers - Part 1

Recently there has been a huge interest in card making. Card making is a hobby that can cover a wide range of different crafting techniques.

The use of acrylic paints in card making will add another cost effective and interesting option to the materials you can use in the final card. If you already have a range of acrylic paints you’ll be able to use these paints to enhance your card making materials.

A popular style of card making uses layers of different papers to give the final card more interest and/or extra height.

Paint Your Own for a Perfect Match

You can paint your own backing paper to suit the other materials you wish to use in your card.

The simplest way is to apply a wash of colour or colours to some pre-stretched paper. Let the paper dry, remove the paper from the pad and cut it to the size you want to use for your background paper.

One effective method is to dampen the paper with a spray bottle of water and drip on the colours you wish to use – letting the colours spread and blend together. This can be subtle or dramatic depending on your choice of colours.

Use Salt for a Textured Effect

A variation on this method is to sprinkle on some salt after applying the colours. Leave the paper to dry, and then brush off the salt. The final result will have a lovely speckled, textured effect.

The Easy Way to Make a Special Present

We all know someone who is difficult to buy a present for. Someone who has everything they need and would not appreciate ‘normal’ gifts. Often this will be your parent or an older relative or neighbour, and they can be a problem to buy something for.

Well, this is a simple way to make a unique gift that they will be happy to accept. When you take the time to produce something that relates only to them and their interests it will always be happily received.

Use their Interests as a Theme

The idea is to make a picture that includes something that they are especially interested in. This could be a hobby or any other interest they have.

This is a quick and easy technique. You simply choose your theme (their hobby or interest), paint a silhouette of it onto a coloured background and frame it.

You could paint a coloured background onto a canvas panel or use already coloured paper. I noticed my local art store had coloured card that had a range of colours merging into each other, this would be ideal for this technique.

The theme of your silhouette is really the creative part. The easiest thing would be to use their hobby as the theme.

Look through some copyright free clip art until you find an image that you could use for the outline of the silhouette.

If they like fishing it could be a fisherman/fish/fishing fly. For a golfer it could be a set of clubs/golf hole with flag. For someone who likes to cook it could be related to cooking. If they are keen church-goers a silhouette of their church may be appreciated.

A lot of people like to receive a silhouette of their home. For car enthusiast a silhouette of their car is a good idea. In which case you could use a digital camera and take a picture of their church, home or whatever you have decided to include in the picture.

You really can use your imagination for this. When using clip art you have a huge range of options (probably too many!) to choose from. You don’t have to be great at drawing!

Also, you can use a computer graphics package to blend together two or three images for your final silhouette shape. Be sure to adjust the size of the final image to make it the correct size for the painting surface you have chosen, and print it out. As this is a gift you can make it whatever size you choose.

Once you have painted or found a suitable background, then trace around the outside edge of the image for your silhouette shape. Use carbon paper for this.

Fill it in

The silhouette shape can be painted in using acrylic paints – don’t make the paint too thin though! Another alternative is to use a permanent marker, not a normal marker as it will fade over time, and that would be disappointing for the person receiving the gift.

Silhouettes look very effective and traditional in black. However you could use a darker shade of one of the colours in the background for an alternative look. For example if the background was a pale green the silhouette could be in a dark green. This all adds to the uniqueness of your gift.

If you are using a coloured card it will be better to use a permanent marker as the water in the paint may cause the card surface to buckle.

Fill in the silhouette shape and leave to dry. Then frame the silhouette picture.

**A distinctive gift for a special person**

This type of personalized gift is always appreciated and shows that you have put some thought, time and effort into the present.

Another major benefit is that no one else will be giving exactly the same gift!

What about a card?

This is an excellent technique if you can’t find a suitable card.

You can make your own special card. It is most effective if you choose a very simple shape for the silhouette when using this method in card making. Cards are generally a lot smaller and look best when you use less detailed shapes.

Use this system and say goodbye to gift buying problems for that hard to please someone.