There are 3 ways to add distressed techniques to a page or any other craft.

1. Tearing
2. Sanding
3. Inking

I am fond of all three ways and have been known to spend hours on a two page spread! I guess it’s because I love old and vintage items.  I enjoy the way it adds character to a page, any page with little or no expertise. The main thing to look for when you want to tear your paper is to look for white core card stock. Construction craft paper is not white core, but most scrapbook paper out there is…even some brands of solid color paper. Just do a tear test on some or hold it side ways and if you see white in the center, then it is white core.

Because my style is free style, I just tear away, but if you need to, you can always draw a line with a pencil and use that for a guide.

You can distress with any color ink to match your page or other paper craft. I tend to have multiples of brown ink on hand because I like that vintage worn look.  Different inks work different ways. I sometimes use them holding the whole pad for distressing or by dabbing a makeup sponge in the pad and gaining better control of where I want to distress.  The little chalk ink actually ran out so I re-inked it with a favorite brown shade and it’s what I used for this project.

( a sign of a true artist at heart is the ink and paint on her hands after a project, if you don’t want to get messy when distressing with ink, try wearing painters gloves)

Other ways to distress are to use sand paper or scratching tools (paper piercer).  I buy various degree’s of sand paper by the sheet at my local hardware store and found the sanding block at my scrapbook shop. A little goes a long way and can be messy in the end, so it’s best to sand over a work space or a trash can.

Below you can see what happens when I  sand with the coarse paper vs. the fine. For these, I held the paper on the length of my finger while I sanded with the other. If you have sensitive fingers or want to protect your nails, try placing your paper over a book or object and then sand away.

Another way to get that distressed look by sanding is to crumple the paper. Here I crumpled up the corner and lightly sanded it with my sanding block.

Then I took my little brown ink and gently touched up the torn or sanded edges.

Here is great time to wear gloves if you desire them.

You can use the sandpaper to buff out part of the patterned paper.

And for another ink technique, Crumple up a piece of paper. Really tight and crunchy. Ink the exposed edges. Uncrumple.  Then place on the page.

As you can see photo’s can also be distressed with the sandpaper ! Be sure to hold your photo with a soft cloth or paper towel while sanding away. Or you’ll have lots of finger prints to worry about! Sometimes I also ink the edges of the photos. You have to be careful because stray ink on a photo can be unforgiving.

Enjoy!

Tags: distressing, layouts, Tutorials

This entry was posted on Friday, September 3rd, 2010 at 11:13 am and is filed under General Chatter. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.