"Woven" Background

Hello!  Kristie here today from

Kristie Kreates

with a tutorial for you.

It's been a while since I've done a tutorial for 

Mashed Potatoes and Crafts.

Sorry about that, life has a way of getting in the way 

of crafting and blogging sometimes.

But, I thought y'all might like this technique, so 

here I am.

I simply wound some string around an acrylic block.

I secured it on the side with some tape.

Next I chose a couple colors of ink.

I used Color Theory Ink from Studio Calico.

First I chose blue

I pressed the ink pad against the string.

making sure to get plenty of ink onto the string.

I then pressed the "stamp" onto some white card stock.

Because the strings were wider one way than they were

the other, I stamped them twice next to each other.

As you can see I stamped one way, turned the block

and stamped again at a 90 degree angle.

Above was my test piece, where I used all blue ink.

Then I did one with all the blue going one direction and 

chose a green to go the other.

This shows the basket weave much better.

I decided to give a try with a different "block"

I took a small square ink pad and wrapped that with 

string.  This gave a more square stamp.

I tried going all the same way too.  I like this but it

doesn't give the basket weave look, just a totally different 

pattern.

For this last one, I used 2 different colors of

Distress Inks (Vintage Photo and Tea Dye)

I wanted the stamp to be more square,

so I used the same small ink pad and 

covered the top with ATG tape,

you could use any kind of tape runner for this.

Adding the ATG tape was a game changer,

it held the string in place and I could place it all the way

to the edges of the block.

When I showed these backgrounds to my friends

they wanted to know how I got the darker spots in the 

'weave', the dark spots are where the string crosses over itself

so the string is doubled in those spots and it picks up a bit 

more ink.

I hope you'll give this a try, it makes a great background.

I did find I like the smaller block better, as it makes a much smaller

pattern which is more conducive to card-making.

If you'd like to see what I've done with one of these 

backgrounds, be sure to stop by my blog

Kristie Kreates

I'll have it posted there.

Thanks for stopping by today,

I hope you have enjoyed this tutorial

and will try this technique.

It's always fun to use something unique

that you made yourself.

Leave a comment and let me know if you

have ever made your own backgrounds.

Until next time, make something fun!