Distressing Experiments

Don't worry I'm not talking about vivisection!  At my local card class at Woodford Cards and Craft we were playing with using the Ranger Ink Refresher to distress card.  Spray it on, rub it in, scrunch it up, dry it off, colour it up and then iron out.  The end result is a textured card, with great distressed coloured effect, but the best of all it remains supple and almost feels like suede leather.  I loved the result so much I had to buy a bottle to play with, however the scientific enquiring mind I really wanted to know what it was and how it worked. So I felt it- slightly slimey when wet, drying with almost a slight stickiness; so I sniffed it - not much smell at all; so I tasted it (well they do say it is non toxic - but don't do this at home kiddies) and it all fell into place - it contains glycerine!  Hubby was in the papermaking industry for years and glycerine is used to soften and reduce shrinkage in paper. So I made some mixtures of glycerine and water - 1st too wet (ie too much water) paper ended up with holes as I scrunched it. 2nd too much glycerine a bit too thick and kept that sticky kind of feel. 3rd mixture worked like a charm.

The background of the following card was made with this distressing technique.   The butterfly image is Vintage Cherish from Kaisercraft.  The image was stamped 4 times and layered (though this isn't obvious from the photo).  The image is ink distressed and coloured with Tim Holtz Distress Inks (broked china, tumbled glass, brushed corduroy & frayed burlap) then coated with Jelly Roll glitter pen and finally Glossy accents.  The satin ribbon was also coloured with distress ink.

I would like to enter this card in the following challenges

Tutorial Time on SpeedyTV Challenge 18  This challenge was all about distressing following a tutorial on ink and physical distressing (like tearing) by Pam Stang.

Bunny Zoe's Crafts is also having a distressing challenge. Now that's not to say that anyone is in an unhappy state of of mind but the challenge is again all about distressing

Simon Says Stamp blog Celebrates World Card Making Day! Where they want everyone to show what cards they are working on.

Bizzy Becs Store.Blog Challenge for october which is "Things with Wings"

Vintage Elusions Challenge Blog with the theme of Wings/Anything goes