This week, I want to share some ideas on paper distressing with you. The simplest way to explain paper distressing is adding an aged/well worn look to your paper. Close To My Heart sells an awesome Distressing Kit for just $35.95 and it includes almost everything you need to distress your paper in so many ways! The kit includes:
- 6 Texture Tools (2 foam, 2 stipple, 1 sea sponge, 1 stubble)
- 6 4 x 4 sheets of sandpaper
- 1 Sanding block
- 1 Emery board
- 3 Paint brushes (1" flat, 1" foam, 1" fan)
- 2 Distressing inks (black, chocolate)
- 1 2oz Delta Creamcoat Paint
- 1 Edge distresser
- 1 Paint tray with mixing sticks
- 1 Carrying Box
Now let me tell you what you can do with such a great little kit!
6. Add Color With Ink.
There are a TON of ways to distress by adding color with your inks!
- Swipe your paper with ink and a sponge/stipple tool. When doing this, you can swipe a sponge inward toward the center of the paper, off the edge of the paper, or down the edge of the paper. There are also several different types of sponges that you can use to obtain different looks. The round sponge and sponge daubers are not included in the distressing kit but they are also very reasonably priced. Tools in the kit used for this technique are the foam texture tool, sea foam texture tool, tool, and stubble tool.
- Direct to paper. The direct to paper technique simply adds ink straight from your ink pad directly to your paper. To accomplish this, hold your paper in one hand and your ink pad in the other and swipe your ink pad across your paper as desired.
5. Distressing Inks.
The distressing kit comes with two distressing inks: black and chocolate. These mini-inks are about 1" squares and are great for small projects.
4. Paint and re-inkers.
Adding paint to your projects gives your art another look. To do this just add a couple drops of the re-inker to the white paint in your distressing kit and mix it together. If you want a darker color, continue to add drops of re-inkers.
There are different paint brushes in your kit:
- Foam brush
- Flat brush
- Fan brush
3. Sanding.
Sanding is a great way to remove color. Since the Close To My Heart papers have the white core, sanding the paper has a great affect. When you are sanding to distress, you can sand your edges or your entire cardstock. You can also make plaid patterns in your cardstock by sanding in one direction and then switching directions. Don't forget that you can also sand the edges of your photos to make them looked aged as well.
2. Edge Distresser.
The edge distresser that comes in the distressing kit is a great way to distress the edges of your cardstock, pattern papers, and photos.
1. Wet & Wrinkle.
Wet and wrinkle paper is a way to make your cardstock look very old or even leather-like. I use a heave spray bottle of water to saturate my cardstock. Once it is wet on both sides, I carefully wrinkle it up into a tight ball like I'm throwing the paper away. Be careful with this step as you don't want to tear the paper. Some small tears may help the paper look aged but you don't want them to get out of control. Then unfold the paper and flatten it out and let it dry. Once it is dry again, you can even stamp on it.
I hope you are ready to try some new distressing techniques. Don't be afraid to experiment a little and see what you like. Play around and let me know how it goes! If you don't already have these tools, mention this blog post to me and I will give you a 15% discount your your purchase of the distressing kit.
