{Spotlight Project} Maria Water Bleaches Distress Oxides

Hello STAMPlorations friends! I'm playing with Distress Oxides again today. Thought I'd try water bleaching or "ghosting" them.

It works, probably better with some colors than others (like the purple), similar to with Distress Inks. Here's what I did.

STEP 1

Gathered my supplies. For the Birds, masculine colors of distress oxides, Archival black ink, watercolor paper and water.

STEP 2

I planned my layout, choosing three of the birds with a B/W pattern and using the smaller trio too. Picked the stamps up on my acrylic block.

STEP 3

Knowing I wanted big blocks of color on my panel I first swiped the middle color.

STEP 4

Swiped the other two colors and let the panel dry.

STEP 5

When swiping you get leftover ink on the craft mat. Not to fear...

STEP 6

... I spritzed it and dabbed it up with some tissue paper. Watch for this in my next Spotlight post!

STEP 7

So back to our regular programming... I stamped the panel using Archival black ink when it was dry.

STEP 8

Stamped part of the second trio up top.

STEP 9

Then using paint brushes and water I "bleached" or "ghosted" the three large birds. Used a skinny brush for the smaller areas. I got the best results if I put an ample amount of water down, let it set for a minute and then dabbed it up with a clean cloth.

In the second photo you can really see the water at work on the purple ink, "loosening" it from the paper. It really "bleached out" nicely as you can see on the finished card.

To finish it off I decided to use a black die cut Thanks Word and a secondary sentiment from the stamp set - there are several lovely ones. I added a strip of PP and then also stamped the stripe from Mixed Media Grunge along the bottom of the panel.

I didn't think I needed the Distress Oxides when they first came out. Now I'm happy I have a few. And would really like to get my hands on the next 12 cuz those are most of my favorite colors! How about you? Are you on the Distress Oxides bandwagon yet?

Remember if you try out any of the techniques, like bleaching Distress Oxides or even Distress Inks like I did in this Spotlight post, from our Spotlight posts, don't forget to hook your project up at our Spotlight Project Showcase.


Tschüss,
Maria


Products Maria used in today's project: