One of a kind by Gabrielle

I know that many of you will have started to buy the rather lovely Distress Paints but might not always know how to use them. There are lots of ways they can be used and I thought I might share one of them! This might be a bit picture heavy!

I started by die cutting a Postage Stamp and Bottle Cap and a giant tag shape from kraft card.

Then I put some Picket Fence Distress Paint on my craft mat and sprayed a few squirts of water over the top. I then dabbed the tag into the paint adding more paint to my craft mat as needed. I then dried the tag and then repeated the process a couple more times. I wasn’t trying to achieve total coverage.

I then added a final layer of Spun Sugar Distress Paint and in doing so picked up a little blue ink from my craft mat. I never really mind about that as it adds to the layers!

To complete the background I added a harlequin pattern by first dabbing Seedless Preserves Distress Paint through the Dylusions stencil with Cut-N-Dry Foam - crossing your fingers is not compulsory! I don't know why I cross my fingers when I do this but I do! Perhaps I'm hoping that it works!

I then added Victorian Velvet Distress Paint over the top of the Seedless Preserves by moving the mask just slightly to the right. I then dried the tag and then sanded it until it looked ‘shabby’ and then I added Vintage Photo Distress Ink to the edges.

For the Postage Stamp and Bottle Cap die cuts I repeated the process with just the Picket Fence Distress Paint and sanded them. I also decided to add a sentiment and repeated the process with a further piece of kraft card. I stamped the images on to the Postage Stamp and on to white card. I cut out the images on the white card and coloured with Distress Markers (Victorian Velvet, Mustard Seed and Brushed Corduroy) before adhering to the Postage Stamp. The little dress form was made the same way but the ‘skirt’ was cut from packaging that the dies came in!

To complete the tag I die cut another Postage Stamp from the new Paper Collage Mini Stack papers and tied a button to some twine. To jazz up the button a little I added Picket Fence Distress Paint to it and then wiped off the excess. To keep it to the theme of the tag I dabbed a little Vintage Photo Distress Ink over the top when it was dry.

I hope this might inspire you to use your new paints - and you could always upload your creations to the all new Country View Crafts Challenge blog where the inaugural challenge is ‘Pick and Mix’ or anything goes!