I love a sketch challenge. With all the excitement this past year with Oxide Inks I’ve been wanting to do one of those backgrounds. However, I don’t own them. I did just get some Yupo paper. I first read about this paper in Cardmaker Magazine. Basically, it’s a sort of plastic paper. This is my first experience with it, so I’m not an expert but here’s my experience.
Yupo Review
Because of it’s “plastic like” surface it doesn’t absorb the ink. So you have a lot of time to move the ink around. There are many videos on making your own background or designer paper. What I did was first choose several ink pads of colors I love together. I dabbed some ink on a non porous mat of all the colors. Then I squirted the mat with water from a spray bottle. I took a large pc. of plastic wrap and wadded it up to wrinkle it and then opened it up and laid it on the ink. Then I turned the plastic over and laid my Yupo paper over that plastic wrap. But I needed it to have more color so I added more ink directly on the Yupo and sprayed with water. I discovered that because the ink stays wet for some time I could take a straw and blow the ink where I liked it! Then you have to wait for it to dry. You could probably speed it up with a heating tool. I didn’t.
Here’s how I made this card:
Step 1: Make your background using the technique above with your choice of colors. The picture below shows one of the ATC’s I made with this technique and Watercolor Paper. It’s interesting to me how much more vivid the colors are but no moving around time:
Step 2: I bought this beautiful stamp from Hero Arts called Leafy Vines. This is a rubber cling stamp. I used teal ink and my Misti and stamped over my dry background.
Step 3: Cut two lamp posts from white cardstock with this die set:
Cut a little pc. of pale yellow cardstock to put between the two lamp post pcs. to mimic light and glue all together.
Step 4: From these two die sets cut the 3 little butterflies from 1011 – Garden Notes – Bugs and Butterflies and the large butterfly from out of white cardstock and color with Copic Markers. On the large butterfly overlay pc. I went over the coloring with Glitter Pens.
Step 5: Cut four of the 2nd to the bottom bead dies from this die set 1168 – Bead Strings 1 out of purple cardstock:
Step 6: Stamp the sentiment on cream cardstock and cut out with the 2nd smallest from the set on the left. Cut out of lavender cardstock the 3rd smallest die in the set on the right:
Step 7: Create the base card by cutting a 12 x 12″ pc. of Soft Sky cardstock in half. On one half score at 6″ on the long side. Fold into a book fold and trim to 6 x 7″.
Step 7: Assemble the card. In the below pictures are all the elements of the card.
Cut the Yupo background to 4.25″ x 5.5″. Frame it with the purple “Bead Strings”. Add two strips of the Peel Off silver stickers with the bottom one at 1″ from the bottom of the base card. Next adhere the Yupo background to the base as shown putting the lavender circle under the upper right corner. Adhere the largest butterfly on the top right corner of the background mat, then the sentiment circle. Next adhere the “lamp post” to the lower left as shown. The last step is to add the tiny butterflies as shown.
That’s it!
Thank you so much for taking a look and I hope you will try this fun technique!
Other Products Used:
Elizabeth Craft Designs: Soft Finish Cardstock 12 x 12 Sky Blue, Clear Double sided Adhesive 10mm
Beacon’s Kids Choice glue
Sizzix Big Shot Plus
crazyforpaper 