Distressing Tips

Hi everyone

Well as promised, here's my distressing tips...these ideas are not new and innovative....they've been around forever and I'm so glad this style is coming back....love it!!

I’ve saved these ideas for creating my own ‘Distressed Look’ and I'm very happy to share them with you. I also call this look ‘Vintage’, or Shabby Chic...or Shabwa...okay that's a crazy word I know...my daughter and I made that up!  LOL!! Try it...Oh that's very Shabwa....do you think it'll catch on?  {g} ...maybe not!!

The main idea is to make your card, or scrapbook page or tags, look old and worn, like you just pulled it out of the attic or trunk. If you have other ideas please leave a comment and share, then we’ll all get inky and shabby together!

Here we go....these ideas are not by any means hard and fast rules or anything....actually anything goes! I'm by no means an expert at this style...these are only some ideas to share with you {g} Also try looking around your house or garage for all kinds of goodies you can use or distress!


• Tearing, ripping or sanding your cardstock/paper.

• Try some peeled back cardstock, cardboard, or coffee sleeve holders or add some brown packing paper...really fun!

• Distressing Edges with the Distressing tool...love this tool! Or try your fingernail, a bone folder, etc...anything that will make a ragged edge.

• Crumpling and Uncrumpling (very technical term!)  Also to add water, then crumple/uncrumple and dry before adding your embellishment will give you a different look too.

• Sponging...love, love, love sponging! (Edges and everywhere else that you feel needs it!)

• Choose a stamp set, there are some great ones out there, such as Vintage Vogue and Elements of Style.... you can make anything old looking!

• Keep your ink to values to one or two colours or just use one colour....so if we’re talking about browns which I love {g} try light, medium and dark to give you some highlights and darker interest spots. (I learned this one at an art class...long ago!) A fun edging technique is to sponge brown on and then edge it with a bit of black..looks great.

• Inking...direct to paper, sponging, spritzing (especially with the colour spritzer tool that you use with markers...very cool!)

• Chalking with Versamark.... pastel colours gives a soft vintage look to your backgrounds, then overstamp with your fave vintage stamps.

• Layering so that different layers show through....like old wallpaper.

• Use old books, dictionaries, maps, old sheet music, etc...to add interest, as well as old dress patterns or free clip art. Raid your sewing stash to find old measuring tape, sewing pins, etc.

• Add fun things like bits of branches, old charms, jewellery pieces or watch innards (love that word!) old buttons, etc.

• Add stencil paste or gesso or spackle (for repairing dents in the wall....don’t ask!) just need to add a few swipes here and there for a great effect.

• Tea staining or coffee staining...soak bits of fabric, lace or ribbons in tea...just make some strong tea and dunk in whatever you have....then dry! Or rub into coffee grounds...I haven’t had great success with this myself and seriously the coffee grounds get everywhere! I’d much rather use my colour spritzer with a chocolate chip marker!

• Collages....I’ve used an old technique....I can’t even remember where I learned this one! It was called Serendipity technique...I think! You tear up bits of different cardstock, I used some that I made doing a One Sheet Wonder technique and emboss some of the stamping with gold, silver or copper....then you either tear or cut this sheet up and glue it down randomly on your base cardstock, you can even punch out shapes with the homemade patterned paper....very cool and it’s a great to use up scraps! I’ll see if I can find some samples of my old card {g}...here you go....this collage idea is in pinks and blues with silver embossing.

 

• Burning....this comes with a warning!! Be really careful if you try this one!!! I did this one at a class and it was fun but nerve wracking too....I did it only once at home and did it over the kitchen sink so I had someplace to drop it and to have water handy. You can really achieve this look just as well if not better with ink! But I thought since I’m sharing you might be interested in this one too....but seriously....please be careful!

Hope this list is helpful and that you have fun creating your own distressed and shabby chic projects!  Don't forget to share any tips or tricks of your own...leave them in the comments!

Thanks for stopping by  and sharing your time with me ~ Judy