De-Stressing with Distressing

This week, the challenge is Distressing.  At first, I was thinking, "sure, I can do this, no problem.....Just stamp with the texture stamps and throw a little Distress Ink on a few edges and bam!"  Then, the lovely ladies at Stampendous sent me some products that I had never used before and a link to a video (which I have posted further down).  I have to admit, the thought of learning a new technique caused me a little stress.  I watched the video and gave it a try.  It was FAR easier than I thought.  I am not sure if I did it exactly like the video, but I loved it.  I am hooked.  Let me show you what I made.

Both the blue and the distressed orange paper started out as white Mixed Media Paper.  I used two variations on the techniques I saw in the video.

Orange Paper

1)  Paint the paper with a mix of Quinacridone Gold and Titan Buff DecoArt Media Fluid Acrylics.  Don't mix the paints, just squeeze them on your palette and use your brush to pick up both colors.  They will mix on the paper and create variations of the colors.  Let this dry.

2) Paint some Americana Decor Chalky Finish Paint in Everlasting onto your palette or craft sheet and use it as an "ink pad" for your ASCRS03 Industrial stamp.  I used the one that looks like peeling paint on this one.  Stamp it all over your background.  I made sure that the stamp orientation remained vertical, so that the peels look like they are all weathering in the same direction.  Let it dry.

3)  Lightly brush some Quinacridone Gold over the whole top.

4)  Seal with DecoArt Duraclear Matte Varnish.

Blue Paper

1)  Using the same technique as the orange (not blending the colors, but picking them all up on your brush), paint the Mixed Media Paper with DecoArt Media Fluid Acrylics in Prussian Blue Hue, Paynes Grey, and Titan Buff.  Let dry.

2)  Stamp with ASCRS03 Industrial Stamp Set in StazOn colors Blue Hawaii and Cloudy Sky.  I chose the one with the scratchy effect and used the stamp in a different direction with each stamp.

3)  Seal with DecoArt Duraclear Matte Varnish.

Stencil

1)  Use removable tape all the way around the DWLG754 Large Oak Leaves Stencil on the blue paper.  Place the first piece across the full top of the stencil and, when removing, treat this as a hinge to lift your stencil.

2)  Use the palette knife to transfer the Black Matte Embossing Paste to the Paste Spreader.

3)  Place the paste spreader on the top of the image and pull straight down, treating the spreader like a squeegee and keeping it in contact with the stencil at all times.

4)  Remove the tape and let it dry.

Now, this is where everything went sort of wrong for me.  I SHOULD have just repeated the above process with the Crackle Embossing Paste and then, when it dried, I would have colored the white surface with inks or alcohol markers.  It would have looked like this (which is a preview of next week's card):

However, I found my only container of Crackle Paste to be almost gone and really, really dry.  With nothing to lose, I added water and Quinacridone Gold paint to the container and mixed it.  In the end, it more resembled small curd cottage cheese than the whipped cream cheese texture that I should have had.  I tried it anyway.  It took forever to dry.  When it was almost done, I turned my Embossing Heat Gun on it, which bubbled the surface even more.  It now had both cracks and bubbles. It looked like this:

The original base color on this (because of the addition of that paint) was sort of a light gold orange.  I added color with my Stencil Brushes and whatever pigment ink I had around.  In this case, I used Vesacolor in Green Tea 161, Split Pea 63, Boysenberry 126, and Orange 13.  I also used Versamagic in Eggplant.  The combination of the Eggplant and the Green Tea over each other made the brown color on the stems and acorn caps.  Finally, just because I had it, I brushed on DecoArt Metallic Lustre in Gold Rush, Iced Espresso and Champagne Ice.  You certainly don't need to use all these colors. they were just handy to me.

So, now that you have seen the video, and my project (please leave a comment if you get the chance), check out the rest of the players for today:

Stampendous Blog

Laura Drahozal DW

Lyn Bernatovich DW

Pam Hornschu DW

Kristine Reynolds DW

Lea Fritts DW

Louise Healy

Tenia Nelson

Alison Heikkila

Wendy Price