First try at 'distressing'....

....and Tim Holtz needn't worry about competition! :(

Having been a bit sceptical about distressing techniques I finally decided to have a little dip of a toe into the water. Hmmmm, this is the result!

For the background I just dabbed three distress ink pads (Dried Marigold, Peeled Paint and Walnut Stain.....aren't the names mouthwateringly great) onto my hot stuff mat and misted it with water. I then picked up the 'mess' with a piece of satin silk artcard from Inkylicious. This card is just great, it's at least 300gsm and I think anything less would have just freaked out at the amount of water I'd liberally sprayed! Then I dried it with my heat gun and stared at the resulting 'mess'. OK, so then I stamped a swirl (using a clear Inkadinkado stamp) in Walnut Stain...and this is where perhaps I should have left well alone. But, I misted again and lost the clear definition....boo,hoo!!

But, I'd gotten this far, so I carried out with my sows ear. I had to trim off the edges where the ink had 'pooled' a bit and then layered it onto a cream linen card. The little Gorjuss picture is from one of Gorjuss's sets of toppers and tags, the 'Dream' tag is a Tim Holtz Adage with a little bit of brown edging and the organza ribbon is from my stash (bound to be from Hobbycraft!).

Tentatively I asked the opinion of my 'in-house critic' and was told it looks a 'bit Goth-like'. Yay, just what I'd been trying to achieve - bemused look when I punched the air and hollered 'YESS!!'.

I think this distressing lark is great fun and doubt if you get the same result twice....hopefully the next try WON'T be the same...I want it to be an improvement!!

Learning all zee time though :)

Di
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