Knowing how to use a brayer can add a lot to your handmade greeting cards and scrapbook pages or your 3D paper craft projects. If you’ve ever had trouble finding the right colored paper for a particular project, a Brayer may be able to solve your dilemma. If you have the ink or paint color you need
want, you’re in business with a brayer.
Many craftsmen know how to ink a brayer and spread some color on the paper. For people who have never used one, just be sure to roll the ink or paint evenly over the roller by rolling the eraser over the ink pad, lifting it up and rolling it over and over again, until you can see that the entire piece rubber is evenly covered.
The first layer of color will create a hard line on the paper. To avoid this, place some paper under the card stock and lay out the first piece of color right next to the paper. Continue spreading the ink or paint, gradually layering the color onto the cardstock. You will have far fewer streaks or lines if you use this technique and you will find that the colors blend more beautifully.
If you are using multiple shades of color, always start with the lightest color first. You won’t need to clean your roller between colors if you work from the lightest to the darkest shades. Just keep a roll of paper towels handy to remove most of the color between coats.
To clean your brayer, use non-alcoholic baby wipes (this way you won’t make your rubber roller dry and hard or crack), spray it with cleaning mist or remove it from its handle and wash it under the tap. Pat it dry with paper towels by placing it back on its handle before rolling it up on a paper towel.
However, your Brayer can work harder for you than this. Here are some other ideas for trying special effects.
Special effects and your Brayer
An interesting effect you can try is to wrap your brayer roller with rubber bands before inking it. Pull the roller out of the handle, twist some rubber bands over the roller until you have a nice pattern, and snap it back into place on the handle. Ink your brayer and rubber bands and apply it to your cardstock. The patterns this will produce can be very interesting and unique. If you don’t want a shadow effect, be sure to press the Brayer roller firmly against the cardstock on the first pass and avoid going over the same area again.
Try inking the clean brayer again with new rubber bands and another color of ink and roll over the cardstock after the first coat has dried.
Now try wrapping the roller with other materials like ribbon, twine, or string and see if you like the patterns made with them.
Another item to experiment with with the roller itself is the repositionable paper and tape. Apply it to the rubber in the pattern you like. Ink the brayer, then carefully remove the paper and tape before applying the ink to the cardstock. Of course you will have areas that are not colored by the brayer when you use this method.
Remember that the ink will resist heat etched images even if applied with the brayer. First emboss your image onto your cardstock, then once it’s cool, go over it with an inked brayer. You can then wipe the embossed image with tissue paper to make it shine again and allow it to really stand out. Try this method with glitter cardstock, for example. You will have a beautiful glossy finish with this paper. Glossy cardstock is wonderful for embossing images and then braying them.
Brayers can also be used on uneven surfaces. Try rolling ink or paint over a dry embossed image (with the emboss facing up, you’ll get more ink on the hills or edges of your image. With the embossed image facing down, you’ll get more ink on the flat paper around the image ).
Try gluing a pattern onto paper or directly onto your craft mat and lay the soon-to-be-inked paper on top before braying. Little edges caused by the tape or even another sheet of paper or card stock will cause the brayer to leave different amounts of ink. You can make sharp corners appear with this method.
If you don’t want the edge of the underlying paper to show through, try padding your work surface with layers of old newspaper. They are smoother than other papers and will allow you to achieve more even colored surfaces while giving you enough scrap paper to run the edges of your cardstock with the brayer. You can color your entire piece of cardstock this way.
Different papers will produce different looks with your brayer, so experiment.
You can draw or color your Brayer roller with water-based markers, just like you can color a rubber stamp with them. Remember to breathe into your roller before you bray your paper, as you may find the pens dry out a bit if you take time to colour. Try a pattern of circles, squares, or stripes with your
to think. Try feeding the paper from several different directions.
If you want to try writing on your brayer with water-based texts, remember that you will produce mirror writing with your brayer unless you can write backwards.
Bubble wrap might be just what you need to ink your brayer if you want an interesting background.
Try using a couple of colors of ink on different parts of your brayer, or drop ink or paint onto your work surface and brayer over it to mix them together.
Remember that you can use metallic inks to tint your brayer. Braying with gold or silver, copper or brass colors will really add pizzazz to your paper crafts. You can apply metallic inks on top of a painted background or around the edges of a piece to highlight and highlight it. Wrap the middle of your roller with paper before inking the edges with metallic ink, then roll this over your image to create a frame.
Brayer over the center of the lace or a mat or netting that you’ve taped around the edges to prevent slippage, then lay cardstock over the inked or paint-coated lace and smooth it with the brayer. Pick up your cardstock and see what a beautiful pattern has been made.
Punch out shapes with your paper punches and attach them to your cardstock, securing with repositionable tape or glue. Pass them with the brayer and you can create perfect negative shapes. This is how you could put a moon in a night sky background, for example.
one last tip
Be sure to store your brayer with the roller facing up. Turn everything upside down, in other words. This way your rubber roller won’t develop a flat side. You want it to stay symmetrical and smooth.
Many artisans use brayers to create beautiful backgrounds of sunsets or lake reflections. I’ll tell you next time.
In the meantime, have fun making your brayer work harder for you!