InkBuds - Distress techniques

The second project we made at the InkBuds weekender was a tag book of different distress techniques taught by Hels Sheriden who is a qualified Ranger Educator. In order to prevent us getting brain fog from all the techniques, we added stamping to the tags before making them up into a book with mount board covers. I wasn't feeling brilliant and so I left early. Hels did offer to assemble my book for me, but I decided to bring it home unfinished instead. The photos show the front and back of the tags, we did the same techniques on both sides.

There was a mix of experience in the group and so we started off with the basics and progressed onwards, with lots of tips as we went. I won't go into details about all the techniques, but I will share the top tip of the day. Your most important distress ink is Antique Linen. If you're doing a blending technique, then put down a base coat of Antique Linen before you add your colours. It won't affect the colour of your inks significantly, but it will allow the inks to move more freely as they're sat on top of it and so you will get a smoother blend. If you're having trouble with a hard edge on a blend then if you go over the top of it with Antique Linen then it will smooth it out.

I had a play with some of the techniques a couple of days after the workshop and used the spare blank tags we'd been given to practice the techniques and to write down the steps on the back as a reference.