Deer and Fawn Designs: DIY Project Life Cards using Distress Ink

Happy New Year Everyone!
I hope you all had a fabulous break over the Christmas period and made some amazing memories, I know I sure did!

Today's page is one I have been meaning to do in what feels like forever, I am trying to keep my pages fairly simple at the moment since I am still playing 'catch up' for 2014 but I also want to use a bit of creativity too, so I dug out my Distress Inks from the dark corners of my craft room and got a little messy!

Below is my end result AND I have some instructions for you as well so you can create your own back grounds too using what could very well be my favourite technique!

Left Side

Right Side

First of all, prepare your surfaces! I usually have some old newspaper which I put my cutting mat onto to protect the table I'm working on. I added some Contact book covering stuff to the back of my cutting mat as I didn't have a non stick craft sheet at the time (now I really don't think I even need one!). It helps to have a few sheets of paper towel handy!

The next step is to grab your inks, for this project I've used Tim Holtz Distress Ink in Salty Ocean, Barn Door and Black Soot. I've also used two Tim Holtz Stencils (Burlap & Stripes).
Apply your ink directly onto your craft sheet as shown below:

Applying Ink directly to craft sheet / Contact

Grab a mist sprayer (like Inksentials Mini Mister) OR fill a small bowl and spray/ add droplets of water to the ink. Place your stencil on top of the ink and press down on the stencil so the stencil picks up some ink.

Place stencil on top of inky mess!

The final step is to pick up your stencil out of the ink, and press it onto your cardstock as shown below, press down in places so the cardstock can absorb the colour then lift the stencil away carefully. If the colour is too intense or saturated, you can dab the excess with some paper towel.