With so many different shapes and sizes of bare chipboard available to crafters at the moment it can sometimes be difficult to know how to approach using them in your crafting and get the result that you want. Bare chipboard can be decorated in lots of different ways, painting and embossing with embossing powders are just two ideas. As a backing paper designer I am always looking for new ways to use my papers on cards and scrapbook pages to give interesting and different results.  Covering bare chipboard with your favourite backing paper is a great way of co-ordinating elements perfectly.

Here is a quick tutorial showing you one way to add backing papers to chipboard and get a professional result with just a little bit of effort.

For my demonstration I have used a chipboard flower from Maya Road and a backing paper from one of my own Funky Hand download collections Shabby Saturday. You will need a sticky glue like Pritt stick, a sharp scalpel for cutting and, my secret weapon, a Basic Grey Precision File kit.  Now, you don’t HAVE to have this file set but if you decide that you would like to work more with chipboard it will be a purchase you wont regret. You can use a metal nail file or emery board and you will still get a good result.

Apply glue all over the front of your chipboard shape making sure you cover all of the surface and then place it face down onto the reverse of your backing paper. Leave it to dry.

Once the glue has dried begin to cut the shape of the chipboard out of the paper from the reverse. Taking care to cut as close to the chipboard as possible.

Your chipboard shape is now covered with your backing paper but it will be rather rough around the edges..this is where your file comes in.

Working from the front of your chipboard gently file the edges of your backing paper. TIP: File at a slight angle and only away from you. If you pull and push the file like a saw the paper is likely to pull away from the chipboard and you wont get the smooth result you want.  Filing your chipboard shape can take quite a while but the more time you take the better the end result will be.

Once you have finished filing you can then decide how you would like to finish off the edges of the chipboard shape. You can leave it plain or perhaps use a felt tip along the edge. I used a small black ink pad to ink the edges for slightly grungy finish.

I added this chipboard flower to a card I made for my best friends daughters second birthday. I attached it to the card by making holes through the flower and the base card and threading 21 gauge covered wire through them both and a co-ordinating button,twisting the wire to secure them all and finishing it off by adding beads and curling the wire.
This technique for covering chipboard works great for all types of chipboard, So, now you can cover anything from chipboard alphabets to your bind it all book covers..Enjoy!

Anice xx