For this technique you will need lots of glossy magazine papers!
I don’t know about you guys but I’m a real hoarder and I’ve got magazines in my collection going back YEARS! I don’t like to throw them out at all. I usually use them for scrap paper and protecting my work surface with. Infact I was doing just that when I discovered how cool these papers are for stamping on!
It all started out with a sheet of magazine paper I was resting on when I was applying alcohol inks to some glossy card. I noticed the inks had overlapped my card and gone onto the magazine paper itself and I liked how it looked.
A little while later I used the same sheet of paper to protect my surface while 
spraying some more card with a mica powder glitz spray I had. Next I used it to protect my surface as I stamped on some more cards, by this time the magazine paper had taken on a life of its own.
Infact I liked the look of the magazine paper so much at this point it was no longer considered ‘scrap paper’ and I HAD to use it in something!
And that is how I came up with this background technique idea….
Try it yourself and see!
Materials Used:
Glossy Magazine Papers – if you don’t have magazine papers you can use glossy travel agent brochures or free glossy catalogues.
* Calligraphy Drawing Inks –or- Posh Impressions Rainbow Inks –or- Adirondak Alcohol Inks –or- Dye Re-inkers –or- Daler Rowney Pearlescent Inks
* Cheap Bathroom Sponge Pieces
* Black Memories Ink Pad
Rubber Stamps Used:
* ART Word (Stampers Anonymous)
* * All Others By: Paper Artsy, Tuscan Rose and Oxford Impressions
How To Create:
1. Look through your glossy and non glossy magazines – doesn’t matter what the subject matter of your magazines is (but PLEASE don’t ruin your stamping mags!)….flick through the pages of your magazines and look for interesting looking pages – adverts are fantastic for this! Look for interesting backgrounds, photos, textures, fashion pages are brilliant – all the patterned fabrics on clothes are interesting backgrounds! Even hair in shampoo adverts makes an interesting background and water and bubbles! Look for anything that catches your eye…and tear the pages out and get yourself a stack of pages…
2. Take a magazine page, and using small pieces of bathroom sponges, dab and smoosh ink all over the surface to create an interesting background. I used artists inks – you can use any types of inks – posh impressions, dye re-inkers or even your alcohol inks. I opted for inks because they are transparent and I wanted some of the printed background to be visible through the colour. The only non transparent inks I used where my Daler Rowney Pearlescent inks – I added them to the final layers to add highlights and a shimmering sheen to the page.
There’s nothing to stop you using other mediums – experiment and play and see what you can do. You could use acrylic paints – either neat or water them down with water to create a kind of glaze.
I didn’t ‘think’ about how I was going to put the inks on – I just splotted them over the magazine pages in any old fashion using sponge pieces and continued until I got an effect I liked the look of. Once I was happy I set the background aside to let it dry.
Here’s some examples of backgrounds I created prior to stamping:
3. Once the inks have dried on your backgrounds you can STAMP on them! You can stamp using an permanent inkpad – I used black memories but you can also use Stazon or Ancient Page or Brilliance (remember to heat set first)
Here’s a backgrounds I stamped below – I’ve shown the before and after stamping background so you can compare:
BEFORE STAMPING (top) AFTER STAMPING (bottom)
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One word of caution, do not stack the stamped magazine papers on top of one another while they are still wet as they will stick to one another! I found out the hard way – make sure they are fully dry first!
Once my stamped backgrounds where dry I made them into Artist Trading Cards – you can see my creations on this page!
More Ideas For Magazine Papers:
Instead of adding colour to the magazine papers use them neat! Look for interesting textures and patterns and stamp directly on the patterns or use the patterns for layering onto cards – these are fantastic background papers!
Experiment adding less and more colours to change the original background off the magazine paper itself. You can add dark colours to completely cover up the original page and leave only parts of it showing. Brayer, spray, sponge or paint colour on using different mediums and inks.
Sand the magazine papers to distress it, or even apply gesso!
You could use the magazine papers to make tape transfers! Take clear parcel tape and place over a picture on your magazine paper, burnish with a bone folder, then soak in water and gently rub off the background paper to reveal a printed transfer which can be used in your art!
Remember magazines are nice and glossy photo quality paper! I’ve discovered they are perfect for photo art style stamps!! They take the ink and images perfectly! You have to be careful cos the paper is slick (like glossy card and acetate) but once you’ve got the hang of it you are ready to go!
I’ve also discovered a neat little trick which came about after an accident – when you stamp on the magazine paper (I used black memories) – wait a couple of seconds then using a clean new baby wipe quickly wipe off the wet ink from the magazine paper. It leaves behind a kind of watermark impression on the paper which looks like a cool shadow – great with more bold stamps! I discovered this by accident when one of the images I stamped didn’t stamp perfectly so I wiped it off the glossy paper to start again. I also discovered the darker the magazine print the more defined the ghost water mark!
I’ve been stamping on pictures of fabrics from the fashion pages in the magazines – the patterns make great backdrops for your images I’ve found! And also the actual text on the magazine pages are brilliant for stamping on too – I have a simple vertical stamp which says ART and that looks good stamped on plain printed magazine paper text…
Darker magazine papers are perfect for stamping on using metallic inks – I’ve used Brilliance Cosmic Copper and I love the shine of it on the paper.
Remember you can make your magazine papers into collages too!
Another idea is to use the magazine papers with your craft punches! I had lots of left over pieces when I trimmed around my stamped papers, it seemed a shame to throw them away as they looked really interesting so I got my circle punch and punched out anything that looked interesting to use as accents on cards. You can use any shape at all but I decided on circles cos it was the nearest punch to hand and also I figured what I didnt use on the cards I would probably use in bottle caps..
More Sources For Magazine Papers:
Here’s some fab links I found:
Using a cropping tool for find background on magazines:
http://www.b-muse.com/Collage-Techniques-bkgds.HTM
Using Magazine Papers To Make Collage Backgrounds:
http://www.b-muse.com/Techniques-Collage-ATC.HTM
Faux Cloisonne Using Magazine Papers:
http://www.b-muse.com/Techniques-Embossing-C.HTM
ATCs created using Magazine Backgrounds
http://www.b-muse.com/artist-trading-cards-3.HTM
http://www.b-muse.com/artist-trading-cards-4.HTM
http://www.b-muse.com/artist-trading-cards-5.HTM
http://www.b-muse.com/ATC-Handmade-Book-6.HTM
Artist Trading Cards I Created Using Magazine Paper Backgrounds:
Techniques Zone 
