Getting Crafty with Distress Inks!

Good afternoon,

I hope that where ever you the weather is looking as gorgeous as it is here today, long may it last!

In a couple of weeks I will be starting in a new department at work, so I wanted to let the people in my team know that I will miss them so I've been making them some little Thank you/Goodbye cards.

I have been inspired by some brown rustic card I bought at a craft fair and decided to try and make the cards look vintage and rustic. I used a range of different papers that I have collected but aged them dramtically using a couple of ink pads that have been developed for just this use. Ranger have worked with a the creative master that is Tim Holts and created a range of ink pads, bottled inks, sprays, grunge board shapes, cutting dyes and much more. In the first of my cards I used the Distress ink pads in colours Tea Dye and Walnut Stain and blended them into the edges of the card and paper. I screwed up and then unscrewed the patterned paper and applied more ink to create an even more aged look.

Using Ranger's Distress Ink in Tea Dye & Walnut Stain

In the card above I also used a sanding block on the brown paper to remove some of the colour and make the paper look more worn and vintage.  To add a slight metallic touch I dye cut a simple swirl design from gold mirror card and again used the sanding block, to make it look more antiqued. 

With the finishing touch of crackle glaze on the letter D and a piece of rafia grass tied around the spine of the card I feel I have reached my aim with this card.  Please see below a couple of the other cards in the collection, all with their own variations so they were not all the same.

I used a paper doily and stick on pearls to make this more femine

Here I broke up the dye cut swirl to create a different look

Because I have custom cut the side of these cards I will have to make my own envelopes, but I have a template for this so just have to find the right paper!

I know this post has been a bit different to my first couple but I want to share all my loves in both beauty and craft, and hope that I inspire you to be more creative yourself.

Love Jude

xxxx