February's Focus- Distress Products

I have to admit that deciding on a product for this month was much harder than I expected! But the vote is in, and I've decided to explore my range of distress products. I know Distress inks have been around for many years now, but I've only been scrapbooking for about two and a half years now, so everything is kinda new for me... I'm not so much into the distressed, vintage look, so at the beginning I wasn't really drawn to the products. But after seeing many YouTube videos (always dangerous), I noticed there were a lot of colors that were bright and fresh, and much more my style. Fast forward to today, and I have a little stash of Distress products, like inks, reinkers (which I use to make my own mists), stains, paint and even a few markers. I do love combining different media on my layouts, though sometimes I struggle with getting the final look that I like. Sometimes it's just fun to play with ink and paint, but I don't necessarily like the end result, or the combination of the custom made things with the ready made products. Less talking, more showing. Here's the layout I created, followed by a couple of step-by-step photos and instructions-


What I like about this page, besides that adorable photo that make me smile every time, is the combination of the products. I feel like this layout has the right balance for me, for what I find aesthetic and  pleasing to the eye. More on that in a minute. Here are the Distress products I started with-


As you can see, I used here inks and stains. Worn Lipstick is my favorite shade at the moment. It's gorgeous!
I applied some ink and stain on my craft sheet and spritzed some water.


Then I put the paper on the inks, moving it around but trying to keep the pinks on one side and the blues on the other.


This is a super easy and fast way to create an interesting watercolor-like background. I've seen this so many times on so many different blogs and videos, and I think it's a great technique.
Here's the end result-


Next I tried to use the whole 8.5*11 paper on a 12*12 layout. And that just did not work for me. So I cut it in half-


That brings me to that important point of balance. I found that for me to like the result, I needed the rest of the page to be very clean, modern, graphic, even somewhat minimalistic.
The background patterned paper is from Studio Calico, the other papers are 6*6 papers from Heidi Swapp's Mixed Company collection. 


That gorgeous camera piece is from the Flea Market collection (Maggie Holmes for Crate paper)-from the 12*12 chipboard sheet.
A couple more enamel dots and I call this finished.


On Monday I will post the layout I made with the other half.
So I hope you're inspired to play with your distress products, I'd love to know how you like to use them, so please share:)
Thanks for visiting and have a great weekend!

Comments

  1. This is so pretty! I love the colors you chose. - Shelly

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  2. Love what you did with the stains and ink. It's beautiful! Great layout :)

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  3. Love this so much. Looks like I'll need to get a few more colors of Tim's Distress inks so I can play!

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  4. Like how you used your distress products. Pretty page

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  5. Cool way to use the watercolor technique on a page - I've only ever done this on tags, but I LOVE this look!

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  6. I love that you're showing so many ways to use products - I've never seen this technique before!! One question - what is a craft sheet? Is it plastic?

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    1. Thank you! My craft sheet is from Ranger, it's a non stick surface, like teflon or sth... It's great for inks and sprays, paints etc. because you can wipe it off easily. I think the standard size is 13*18 inch. For me it's a must!

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