Just a little bit Distressed - father's day

Hello everyone, 

Today’s post is "just a little bit distressed, meaning a little bit grungy, a little bit Tim Holtz inspired" but also a little bit stressed. Seems I got muddled with my phone and somehow clicked the video button instead of the photo button so I don't have many pics to share.  

I thought that seeing its Fathers’ Day next Sunday I’d do a large tag for a gift bag and a small gift card holder for those lucky Dads getting gift cards.

I cut my own 11 x 22 cm tag from a sheet of Daler-Rowney Aquafine Watercolour Paper Pad A4 – 16 sheets 300gsm. I bought a few Distress Oxide Inks a while back, namely broken china, fossilized amber, spiced marmalade and peeled paint, but haven’t used them yet so today’s the day I get to try them out.

I stamped Broken China and Fossilized Amber Distress Oxide Ink onto my craft mat a few times and spritzed with water until small bubbles appeared, [the more water the more diluted the ink becomes] then pressed my tag into it, squishing it around a bit to ensure as much of the tag as possible got covered. I heat set the tag and using a Ranger Foam applicator applied more Broken China and Fossilized Amber Distress Inks [not oxide this time], then used the Tim Holtz Distress Sprayer to create some water droplet effects.  The reason I used this sprayer is because if you squeeze the trigger only half way you can create these amazing droplets and drips of water. I went around the edge of the tag with Ground Espresso Distress Ink using a Ranger foam applicator.




There was still some ink left on the craft mat so I mopped it up with an already cut Gift card envelope and added a bit of vintage photo to the craft mat and repeated the process.

At this stage I wasn’t quite sure what I was going to do, so I gathered a pile of stamps, Black and Potting Soil Archival Ink pads, some already stamped images from my stash and a few bits of ephemera, including a die cut camera strip.  I stamped a few images in both Potting Soil and Black Archival Ink.  I also had two small pieces of watercolour paper from my experiments with Distress Oxides. I die cut a metal tab using a piece of Creative Craft Metal Roll 1mx43cm - Silver as well as another tab from Kraft card stock.

Using Black Archival Ink I stamped the Postal Telegraph stamp across the top of the tag and used the “underground” stamp [not on a block] from the Stampers Anonymous Tim Holtz: Steampunk set to randomly stamp the tag. 

I tried different arrangements from my pile of stash until I was happy, then glued everything down but not before using my date stamp to stamp a small ticket with next Sunday’s date. I also used a small Ranger paper clip that I found whilst rummaging.

I used a Spectrum Noir marker to colour the tab and stamped the word “DAD” in black Archival Ink and attached it to the top of the tag. It looks a bit wonky but its not, its just the effect of the light.

I used more or less the same technique on the Gift card envelope and used the Curiosity stamp from the Tim Holtz Steampunk Stamp Set to stamp some text. [There are lots of links to instructions for gift card envelopes on google]. I folded the gift card envelope and glued it down, I stamped the three men in top hats with black Archival Ink and heat embossed using clear embossing ink, then fussy cut the image. I used a few bits and pieces left over from the tag and a word from the Big Chat collection.

I hope these two projects will inspire you to make your own Father’s Day gift bag tags, and for those lucky Dads’ getting a gift card, make a gift card envelope.

Supplies Used:

Daler-Rowney Aquafine Watercolour Paper Pad A4 – 16 sheets 300gsm

Broken China and Fossilized Amber Distress Oxide Ink Pads

Broken China, Fossilized Amber and Ground Espresso Distress Ink Pads

Ranger Foam Applicator

Ranger Distress Sprayer

Jet Black and Potting Soil Archival Ink Pads

Spectrum Noir markers

Creative Craft Metal Roll 1mx43cm - Silver

Idea-ology Big Chat sticker pad

Ephemera

Stampers Anonymous Steampunk Stamp Set

Stampers Anonymous  Elements of Time Stamp Set

Stampers Anonymous Rubber Stamp Set - Odds and Ends
Stampers Anonymous - Tim Holtz - Paris Memoir Stamp Set
Stampers Anonymous - Tim Holtz Cling Mount Stamps: CuriositiesDate stamp
Ranger Washi Tape
Black Card Stock
Camera Strip Die [don't know where it came from now]