bag of beans...

If you are here for the Unity hop, please scroll down, or click HERE.

If you are here for FWF, enjoy this little tutorial. =)

Hello my fabulous friends!

Yay! It's Friday! We made it through another week!

just a quick reminder-- because it pertains to what I use today...

Usually the punny stamps don't call to me, but the moment I saw this jar of beans from Unity's new PUN potato, Fry, {and beans}, I was in love. 

I wanted to keep things pretty simple for this--- just a quick little something to brighten someone's day. 

Of course, I had to get my fingers nice and inky for the background... It's how I roll!

So... here's one way to build a background with stencils and stamps.

Step 1: tape or hold down a stencil over your paper, and use an ink blending tool or sponge to apply dye ink through the stencil. (I'm using a stencil I made with my  Silhouette, and Distress Ink)

Step 2: Remove the stencil and apply a light layer of ink over some or all of the background. I'm using the same color ink for all of this, but you don't have to. Different colors will give you different a different look.

Step 3: Stamp a background/texture stamp over the entire paper... I'm using Unity's "Vintage Handwritten", and ended up having to stamp it 5 times. Don't worry about stamping perfectly or lining everything up perfectly, it is just for visual texture.

at this point, you could add more stamping... or flick some water drops on it... but I decided to just go with it. 

And here you have a custom background paper with lots of visual layers. I love this! It looks so complex but is super easy to do!

This can be done with more than one color... just remember, when working with dye inks, they are transparent, and the colors will blend. Not all colors blend well. Red & Green make brown... Yellow & Pink make coral....

fun little tip... After you die cut, leave the piece in the die, and trace along the inside edge with a fine tip pen. You get a quick & easy border. A few scribbles give it a more hand drawn feel (along with allowing you to hide any imperfect spots)

The background is very subtle because of the stamp I chose to use, however, it really does add a lot of dimension to have the visual layers. (it's all in the details!)

Enjoy!

~Kassi

Supplies Used:

Paper: card stock

Ink: Distress Ink

Stencil: Silhouette "Geometric Criss Cross Overlay Background"

Stamps: Unity "Pun Potato, Fry, and beans" & "Vintage Handwritten"

Dies: Spellbinders "Blossom Tags & Accents", Quickutz "Nesting Circles"

Other: glitter, jute