This make a fabulous background for a male project, or vintage project or steampunk - the list goes on - this technique is so versatile - give it a go, I'd love to hear what you think.

What you will need:

• Distress Ink Pads: Dusty Concord and Black Soot
• Distress Stain: White Picket Fence, Tea Dye, Vintage Photo and Black Soot
• Idea-Ology by Tim Holtz Kraft Resist card
• Moonshadow Mist: Moonlit Mulberry
• Distress Ink Blending Tool
• Inkssentials craft sheet
• Heat Tool (or patience)

Instructions:

1. Trim kraft resist cardstock to size

2. Apply White Picket Fence Distress Stain to craft sheet


3. Drag card through white ink (resist side down) until ink is absorbed, do NOT cover the card evenly in white ink

4. Dry ink using heat gun - or set aside until dry


5. Apply Tea Dye Distress Stain direct from bottle over whole piece of card (again the side with the resist) and dry with a heat gun.

6. Apply Black Soot Distress Stain to craft sheet


7. Drag card through black ink (resist side down) until ink is absorbed, do NOT cover card evenly in ink

8. Dry with a heat gun.

9. Clean craft sheet and repeat this process with Vintage Photo Distress Stain.  You will notice this softens the black a little so it is not so stark.

10. Dry with heat gun - it is important to dry between each colour so that you get a more interesting pattern.

11.  Apply Distress Inks to edges of card to create a 'frame'.  I like to use the ink applicator tool to apply the ink. I started with Dusty Concord and finished with Black soot - just apply these to the edges.


12. Now for the fun part, spray a little Moonshadow Mist onto your cupped fingers and then flick all over the card - this is a technique I learned from Tim Holtz' online class Creative Chemistry - Tim uses water, I love to do this with sparkly sprays - messy and fun!
See how beautiful it looks.

Once the mist dries the finished card looks like this - why the spots?  Well the Distress line of inks and stains is reactive with water, and since the Moonshadow Mist is water based you get a really cool sparkle plus some bleaching/colour movement of the stains and inks.


Your finished background looks like this when tilted one way

and like this when tilted another way - yummy..

And of course you can watch this process in the clip below:

Happy Halloween everyone!