Thursday, September 18, 2008

Master the Brayer, Sensei.... or something.

*Bray-Urh* - "A brayer is a small hand roller, typically used in printmaking techniques to spread ink. They can be made of rubber, sponge, or acrylic and come in a variety of hardnesses for different applications." ~ From Wikipedia.org

Wicked little rolly thing that has had me freaked out about using it for ages. Not sure why I was afraid to just use the dang thing... it's basically the same thing as a paint roller, and Heaven knows, I sure have used those enough! It might be my dislike for messy, wet, goopy art projects.... lol! Whatever the reason my little red rubbery brayer has been sitting in my craft bins since I bought it way back in, uhm, well.... March. I saw some neat stuff in the Technique Junkies Newsletter and wanted to try them, but then never got around to doing it.

So last night I was chit-chatting with Jeanne on Gtalk (super program for you Gmail users) and we were talking bout something or other and somehow brayering came up and Jeanne pointed me to Michelle Zindorf's SCS blog.... oh my.... pass out. Brayer lover heaven. Brayer fearer help! YAY! I basically read through some of her posts and sat down and decided to play... YAYHOO!


Materials Used:

Erin's Creative Color Challenge
CTMH New Fallen Snow Stamps & Acrylic Blocks
CTMH Garden Green, Clear & White Embossing Powders
CTMH Chocolate, Crystal Blue, and Sweet Leaf Inks
CTMH Pewter brads
Somebody's generic white and chocolatey colored cardstocks
A heat gun and a brayer

Here are the first two prototypes... not exactly what I wanted, but they turned out pretty cool. Kinda like Batik.... remember when we rolled up our tshirts and tied them up with rubber bands and dyed them in high school so we could be cool? Ok, some of you may not remember that... but us 80's kids... well... anyway.

I basically just did the embossing powder resist technique. I random stamped and embossed the snowflakes until I had what I wanted for a design. Then I inked up my brayer and rolled it over the card. The ink didn't quite make it into all the tiny details of the snowflakes, so I sponged the ink into the details. I had a blast trying out something different and new, even if it was wet and messy, lol!


I finally achieved (sorta) what I wanted for the resist and richness in color for the snowflakes.... but something was missing, and I didn't want to fuss up the card with gobs of ribbon or anything, so I stamped a sentiment in chocolate ink and then marched back to the guest room to fetch some metal embellishments... pewter brads stuck in the middle of the snowflakes did the trick! I kept trying to tuck the sentiment in amongst the snowflakes, but the ink did not want to stick to the embossed snowflakes... perhaps next time I will try using StazOn for the sentiment.

I can't wait to see your take on the color challenge! Push yourself to try something new, new colors, a new product, or a new technique :)

9 comments:

Jeanne said...

Lookin' good, Erin! Totally forgot about the color combo. I just copied Michelle's technique. Do I get any points for that? Ü

Thanks for the challenge, it was fun!

Amaryllis said...

AweSomE!!!!

Susan Hackney said...

Very COOL!

~Wendy Tunison said...

Erin,
It looks great! I have been a watcher of Zindorf's blog for a while and I wish I had half the talent she has in her brayering hand....I've not been brave enough to try it yet but since you and Jeanne did it, I may have to give it a go...thanks for going first! LOL!

kc_froglady said...

oh this is good Erin, my DT team is being challenged to give MZ's tuts a try and I am so brayer challenged I am afraid to LOL!

Sincerely,Sonja said...

HA! I think my brayer has been in my dawer longer than yours. Now only if I had time to play.
Your creation is beautiful!
So, how difficult was it to play with out your room set up?

Sincerely,
Sonja

Sue C said...

Hey, girl! This is very pretty! I'll have to try your challenge (may even dig out my brayer) and get back to you on that. Little tip I picked up from reading Michelle Z's blog - when you're embossing and brayering you sort of go at it backwards. Whatever you want in front goes on first and gets embossed, then add the next layer (behind), then the next, etc. It's like the opposite of when you layer actual elements - you work from top to bottom instead of from bottom to top, so if you want your sentiment over the snowflakes, you have to do it first,then the snowflakes... Crazy,huh? I've only done one brayered card so far, with moderate success... Glad to see you're back crafting again!

Denise said...

I love the look!!

Great technique!

Erica said...

don't you just love that zindorf blog? I spent over an hour on it last night, trying to convince myself I don't need to make a card like her....but I DO! you did a great job on yours!