brayer fun

Still busy here inking things up with my brayer. I have a review up today at Craft Critique on the subject. When I wrote the article, I assumed everybody has one of these handy tools. Well, we all know what happens when we assume. I thought I'd go into a bit more detail on using one of these nifty tools here.

First of all, don't be afraid of this tool. It's fun to use and cleans up easily with a quick rinse in the sink. I put down some old paper under my project to protect my work surface. One of my favorite ways of recycling is to use an old phone book. Tear off the front page and put your paper to be colored on top of it. Brayer to your heart's content, then tear off the top page and recycle it. You now have a fresh page to work on your next color. Also, while you have your brayer and ink rolling, make a bunch of backgrounds. I usually ink up tons of stuff at once and then have a stack of backgrounds ready to go for later. I tend to make alot of A2 sized cards or arches based on the same size which is 4 1/4" x 5 1/2". Ink up whatever size you work with most or use whole sheets that you can cut down later.

Ok, just how the heck do you actually make a brayer work? Since a picture is worth a thousand words, here are some tutorial links that might help.
~Brayered Sky.
~Bouncing Brayer.
~Video tutorial of Brayered Cuttlebug Ink Embossing.
~Crayon Resist.
~Brayer resource thread with links to samples, ideas, and techniques.

I'm certain that there are more video tutorials out there showing a brayer in use, but I just can't seem to find more right now. If you know of any, please share the link and I'll add it to the list. For now, here's another card I made using my trusty brayer and the plastic wrap technique.



I hope you are getting some crafty fun time this week.