Saturday Step by Step - Dark Distress Oxide Background Tutorial

Hey guys! Autumn here with you today to share a fun and easy tutorial on using Distress Oxides. These incredible pads are certainly making a buzz and their uses continue to inspire and amaze us! With the newest release of colors now available for preorder at The Funkie Junkie Boutique, what better time than to learn a few new tricks?

Because Distress Oxides are highly pigmented and oxidize when wet, they work beautifully over dark colored paper. I was anxious to see if I could create even more drama and contrast by adding some watered gesso to my black cardstock before dipping into my color. To do this, I first applied clear gesso to my heavy black cardstock. I then squeezed some white gesso onto my kraft mat and spritzed heavily with water and used a paintbrush to move the color around. I dipped each panel into the mixture and dried.

Next came the fun part! I tapped each color of pad onto my mat and then spritzed with water and dipped my panels into the inks, then dried and repeated with the next color and so on, drying between each color.

I wanted to try and use the panels in four different ways, so for the first one I stamped a Tim Holtz pattern stamp with Cracked Pistachio DOX and clear embossed.

I really loved this panel! Here you can see the differences between embossing over the white sections and the black. The black is softer, but still very visible. This one has a cracked glass vibe.

I added a black crackle heart and a couple of die cut words to finish it off.

For my next panel I white embossed a sentiment from the Motivations set then used the Stitched Rectangles to cut out the inside of my card and used the outer section to make a frame.

I turned this one into a shaker! Two layers of foam tape, some recycled packaging for the window and a mix of glitter, confetti and punched black hearts make for a simple, yet interactive card design.

Next I took one of my whiter backgrounds and did some simple stamping without embossing. This effect was more elegant.

I embossed a second oval cutout from Metallic Kraft Core to fill the center of my die cut frame and used the off cast portion to cut the word "friend." A bit of Prima Alchemy Wax in Old Silver helped tone down some of my blacks.

Mixing up the way I used the Stitched dies gave me four unique looks with very similar backgrounds.

For the final card I mounted the cutout rectangle onto Metallic Kraft Core and raised up my black embossed center with fun foam. This one kinda has a Star Wars feel no? :)

I truly hope you found this post inspirational and will have a play yourself. Don't forget to pin the above graphic for future reference and visit The Funkie Junkie Boutique for all of the latest inks, stamps and mediums for your next card making project. Thank you, Autumn <3

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