These are Background Ideas that I compiled from emails, my own experimentation, and assorted other places. Have fun playing with them!
Bubble wrap-ink directly on the textured side of the bubble wrap. Place wrap linked side down onto paper and roll with brayer! Makes a "dotty" background.
Kitchen scrubby/bath puff and also works with sea sponge-Dab the puff or scrubby into ink, then pat on paper to make a textured look
Sponge roller-color on sponge using water based markers. Lightly mist sponge with water and roll over paper
Spattering--- (I mainly did this when toll painting but works the same for cards as well). Ink toothbrush, then gently rub bristles to spatter the ink over your paper.
Stamping all over with a small image with the VersaAMark pad or with one or two coordinating colored dye inkpad.
Brayering the Kaleidacolor rainbow pads onto glossy. Leave alone OR spray with water OR spray with water, lay saran wrap over the top, scrunch, and leave to dry.
Stamp directly onto a baby wipe a specific collage design and then turn it over onto a piece of cardstock and press it down...(sometimes spraying it with the water bottle to get the color to jump off the wipe) it gives a muted watercolor affect and then let the baby wipe dry and use it on another piece of cardstock like it's handmade paper...you should experiment with different baby wipes to get the look you like as there are MANY different textures and weights for different results.
Decoupage old pages from books or napkins for backgrounds.
Rubber bands on the acrylic brayer, roll in the inkpad, then on cardstock-blues/greens give a seaweed look.
Cloud Stencil, or torn paper edge, sponged with a couple coordinating colors.
Use a piece of netting to stamp backgrounds. It's the netting, used for weddings, it's a piece about 24" long and 8" wide, folded in half twice, scrunched up in the middle and held with a rubber band. You dip it in the ink and blot it on paper. Simple and easy to use. Just rinse it out with water and let it dry between uses.
Crumple and "stamp" with wax paper (if you don't have wax paper, you can crumple regular paper and that works too)...it makes kind of a handmade paper effect. You can smear your ink with the wax paper too, to fill in white spaces a little - OR - stamp with a sponge - OR - with the cut end of celery - OR - How about using cold, used tea bags?
Use a stipple brush. Just tap it on the inkpad and tap it all over the paper. J Randomly stamp shadow stamps (overlap, and stamp several times before re-inking).
Fill a pan with water, submerge your cardstock, drop a couple of drops of clear nail polish (NOT Sally Hansen Hard as Nails), lift cardstock straight up, set on paper towel to dry. - OR - instead of nail polish, shave chalk into water. This creates a marble look.
BUBBLE BACKGROUND
Method #1
Put detergent into a bowl & toss ink on top of it.
Stick a straw in &blow bubbles onto your cardstock, letting the bubbles pop onto the card.
The cardstock does not have to be glossy however that does work best.
Method #2
Brayer a color onto glossy paper.
Take a small bottle of bubbles &blow bubbles in the air.
Try to "catch" the bubbles with your brayered cardstock.
It works best when you blow the bubbles immediately after you've brayered your background.
