UHU glue background

One of the most generous artists I know is Belinda Spewak who had a background technique on her blog this week. I knew I wanted to create a UHU tutorial and Belinda kindly gave me permission to demonstrate her background technique on my blog, perfectly suited for UHU stic Original glue stick. I suggest you check out Belinda's results and mine which are below.

Sheet 1

Sheet 2

Sheet 3

Sheet 4

Although rather time consuming, these are fun to make.

We begin with a substrate (I used card stock), pages from various books, and UHU Original Stic glue.

Tear a page to a convenient size, then place the UHU glue onto the page in about the same size and shape.

Adhere the first torn page, then add another, either below or above the first one.

TIP: Position straight edges of a book page to the straight edges of your substrate.

Leave a portion of the page glue free so you have the option to place the next torn edge either over or under the first one. Be sure to glue both pages where they overlap.

Completely cover the substrate

allowing pieces to overlap the edges.

Using your favorite cutter, trim the edges.

You are now ready for the second part of the technique.

Supplies from left:

Pre-made backgrounds

Inexpensive acrylic paints (alternately you can use fluid acrylics or tube acrylics)

UHU Stic Original glue stick

Brayer

Begin by swiping your finished backgrounds with UHU glue. The nice thing is you can see the purple go on, so you know where you've been.

You don't have to swipe all over, but be sure to cover most of the page. Allow the glue to dry. You'll know when it is dry because the purple glue turns clear.

I have to admit, I'm brayer challenged. In fact, I've never used a brayer before this project, although I picked this one up at a garage sale years ago. Not knowing exactly how a brayer works, I laid down diagonal lines of paint to try to avoid the paint mixing too much. However, I got too much paint the first time, so I used less paint after that.

The glue acts as a resist if you press really hard on the paper with a clean brayer. I had trouble pressing hard enough, but I was able to get some resist, although not as pronounced as Belinda's.

Although my backgrounds didn't turn out like Belinda's, I am still very pleased with them. They will make great backgrounds for ATCs, altered books, or even hand made embellishments.