Hi friends! Today I am sharing ten of my favorite ways to distress Glitz paper with you! I love the vintage feel of the Glitz collections and they lend themselves so nicely to distressing!
I've got several photos to share with you, so grab a cup of your favorite drink, sit back, and enjoy! :-) Hint - for a closer view of any of the photos, just click on them.
My absolute favorite (and most used) way to distress is using ink! There are two techniques that I use. For the first one (see the sample on the left in the After photo), I hold the paper with one hand and lightly sponge the edges with my other hand. Sometimes I want a bolder look so then I will rub the ink on. I start with my paper flat on my desk and rub my ink of choice in a circular motion all around the edges. You can add as much or as little as you want, but this technique usually gives a darker look than just sponging it on. You can click here to see samples of inked edges.
Painting is another fun way to distress paper! I start with a dry brush and dab on just a little bit of acrylic paint. Then I just play! You can rub the brush across the paper, paint just edges, or do both! Here is a sample of a painted background layer.
Tearing is a great technique to give a worn and tattered look. For my photo, I chose two different patterns and store them into strips. I then mounted it on to a card base. So easy! To distress it even more, try inking up all of the torn edges! You can see the card I made using this sample at the end of the post.
Sanding is such a fun way to distress paper! With so many different options (I've shown a few in my photo above), you can achieve many different looks! In the photo above, I chose to just sand the edges, giving it a worn look. To see a sample of sanding, click here (the tag on the album cover).
Sewing is another way I choose to add character and texture to many of my projects! You can stitch around the edges of a layer, use fancy stitched, or just sew some shapes together (like I did in the photo above). You can see the card I created using the above sample at the end of this post. You can also click here to see more samples of stitching on cards.
With so many fun tools out there, distressing paper is now so simple! In the photo above I used the small paper distresser to rough up all the edges as well as curled some of the corners! Such and easy and fun technique! Although tools are fun to use, you don't need them...you can always use the side of a scissors blade (be careful though!!) or even your fingernail! You can click here to see a project I made with roughed up and curled edges.
Spritzing, either with your favorite ink spray or a marker and spritzer tool, is a wonderul way to distress your paper! In the After photo above you can see the sample of ink spray (shown on the left) and marker spritzing (on the right). I used this technique on one of my cards I'm sharing at the end of this post.
Another great way to age your paper is crumpling (or wrinkling) it! I like to spray my paper with water first, then wad it up into a small ball. After rolling it around in my palm for a bit, I straighten it out and let it dry. If you are in a hurry you can always use your heat tool to hurry the drying along. :-)
I love to stamp directly onto patterned paper to add that extra sumpin' sumpin' to my backgrounds! Glitz has some great vintage patterned stamps that work great for this technique! You can see a sample of this here (the first card has a map stamped lightly on the background) and here.
On this card, I used the sample I for the sewing photo above. I kept the card simple, letting the pretty paper hearts be the focus of the card!
For this card, I used the background sample created for the tearing photo above. Because I rarely just use one distressing technique at a time...I kept on going! :-) I added some marker spritzing as well as inked edges.
Thanks so much for joining me here today! I hope I inspired you to try some of these distress techniques! ~Laurie
Adventure Card
Glitz Design Happy Travels 6" Glitz Paper Pack
Glitz Design Happy Travels Epoxy Words
Dream Card
Glitz Design Vintage Blue Papers - Floral, Toile
Glitz Design Vintage Blue Epoxy Words
Glitz Design Vintage Blue Trim
Glitz Design Vintage Blue Glitzers
Glitz Design Vintage Blue Paper Layers
Glitz Design Vintage Blue Whatnot
