It's our special monthly challenge again - doesn't it come around fast!! This month Chris Dark of Sketching Stamper agreed to be our featured stamper and has done an amazing tutorial for us. So tomorrow, our new challenge will be Distressing, based on Chris's tutorial, we will be back in the morning to launch the challenge and with all the DT samples.
Hi everyone, I was very happy to be asked by Bev and Jacqui to be a featured stamper on Just Magnolia, thank you ladies it’s a great pleasure for me to be included, you know how much I love the JM challenges! The technique I’m going to show is well known to many but it’s one of the areas that I’m asked a lot of questions about. This is one of my favourite things to do with the paper for my cards and so I thought I would show how I do my edge distressing in pictures. Distressing is a loose term for altering the look of papers in a variety of ways including roughing up the edges of your papers, sponging the edges or crumpling papers to give a vintage look. I’ll just be showing edge distressing here as it’s something I do very often. Below is a photograph of the things I use all the time to do this and the makings of the card I ended up with which is shown at the end based on a previous and lovely Just Magnolia sketch by Rach.
In the two photographs above I’m using some sandpaper and rubbing around the edges of the patterned paper which takes away the top patterned layer leaving a nice worn effect. The second photograph shows the same technique being used on a circle of card that’s been embossed with a cuttlebug folder then the raised embossed area rubbed down with sandpaper to leave a lighter version of the embossed pattern. This works best with Core’dinations card which has a lighter core and shows up beautifully when sanded down (unfortunately after starting to sand this piece I realised I hadn’t picked up Core’dinations card! ).
The two pictures above show how I edge distress using an edge distressing tool and also with scissors. I like to use both, the edge distresser gives a more even roughed up edge and the scissors make the distressing more pronounced with more torn areas. I believe that a metal ruler also gives a very good result. Basically I just touch the blade to the paper edge and drag it along a little at a time. Press the blade in slightly more for more rips and tears but if using scissors make sure you’re holding them correctly and not at the underside of the blade! Love, sweat and tears may go into our cards but we don’t want any blood
On to some distressing with ink and the photograph above shows the edges being inked with distress ink and an ordinary cut up bath sponge (cut and dry foam and an applicator can also be used to this). I’ve also inked over the embossed pattern on the circle lightly with ink for some extra detail. I will usually start off lightly with the ink and build it up gradually, you can always add more but if you start off too heavily you’re stuck with it so I would rub off some of the ink initially on scrap paper before applying to the patterned paper or card
On the patterned paper again I’ve inked around the edges going more onto the paper where I’ve sanded for some contrast.
Well that’s all there is to it, no specialised tools required so it’s very easy to do with all the basics that most of us have in our craft boxes.
Thank you for reading through and I hope it’s of help to those who haven’t tried this technique, I love to do it as it adds an extra element of texture to the finished card, talking of which here are a couple of photographs of the card I made with all the elements I’ve used above. I’ve used a sweet Tilda from the Autumn kit and coloured her with markers. The papers and card are Basic Grey Lemonade and Bazzil dark pink.
Chris x
A little about Sketching Stamper:
Sketching Stamper Digi-stamps offer original, instantly downloadable, printable art for Crafters at very reasonable prices. With an eclectic mix of images in a variety of styles I hope that there will be something to suit all tastes. Digital images/stamps are easy to download, they’re delivered instantly to your email and once printed can be coloured as any other stamped image for all your creative projects
We will be back tomorrow to launch the challenge and with all the DT samples.
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