Scrapping Design Team - Sam Cousins


Select Artwork for Larger View and Item List "Ctrl P" to Print		Inking and Sanding and Tearing, Oh My! by Sam Cousins Scrapping Deck Crewmember Oh, and I can't forget Crumpling! These are four of my favorite words in scrapbooking. I love the many different looks and feels you can get from using these four techniques on a scrapbook layout (or any other paper craft). I would like to start by explaining "How to." Many people ask me, "How do you do that?" and it is very easy. The first thing you MUST remember with these four techniques is that there is NO right way to do them. However YOU do it and however it turns out when YOU do it is the RIGHT way!!! Inking: Take an inkpad (yep, an inkpad that you would rubber stamp with). Any inkpad will do. My personal favorites are the new Distressed Inks by Tim Holtz. Simply rub the inkpad over your paper. The edges are my favorite place to ink. Also, if you crumple your paper, lightly rub the inkpad over your paper. The ink will hit the peaks and miss the valleys for a fun look. Sanding: This is exactly what it sounds like. Go to your garage and find a piece of clean sandpaper. Just go to town with it. You can sand the edges of your paper. Again if you crumple your paper try sanding over it. You get the same effect as with ink. The sandpaper removes the color from the peaks and not the valleys. Different grits of sandpaper will give you different effects. Just experiment around until you find what you like. You can also sand your photos. Do NOT sand original photos…make sure it is a copy! You can sand along the edges or even lightly over the entire photo for a nice distressed look. Tearing: Now this is fun! Do NOT be afraid to tear. Tear fast, tear slow, tear straight and tear crooked. It doesn't matter...just tear. Crumpling: This is another fun technique. I personally like this technique because I have a two year old who likes to play in my scrapbooking room. Most of my paper is already crumpled by him. You can do this many ways. You can do it wet or dry. I personally like to crumple my paper while it is dry. Mainly because I am just too lazy to go get it wet. Either way is fine. Just make sure you break the surface tension of the paper first by pressing in the center of the paper. Then crumple it up…just like one of those book reports you wrote in high school but couldn't get right (you remember…the pre-computer days!!!). Just be careful so you don't tear your paper. But if you tear it…that is ok too! Remember tearing was one of my favorite steps that I mentioned above! If you wet it you will need to dry it. If you don't have time for it to air dry, simply dry it with an iron. Now that you have the basics…have fun and play. Try just using one of these techniques or try a mixture of them. I love to crumple, and then ink, then sand. It gives a nice distressed look. The technique I use the most is probably inking. I ink almost anything! I think it can make a project look finished. If you have something that just doesn't look right to you…go ahead and try a new technique. Sam Cousins samcousins@ssreflections.com Scrapping Deck Crewmember S.S. Reflections, Inc. See more ideas, techniques and product reviews at our sister site Scramping Central

Inking and Sanding and Tearing, Oh My!