Stressing Over Distressing

My friend, Tosha, who happens to be our CCEE Stampers' hostess for the month of February, has given us some fabulous challenges this month.  I must admit that this last one had me stressing a bit.  Tosha challenged us to use distressing in our design.  I love the look of distressing that I have seen in many other talented stampers' designs, but it's not my usual style to incorporate into my card designs.  I guess it's just not something that comes to mind when I am creating.  However, that's why these are called challenges!  To make us stretch and go outside our comfort zones.  Right?  Right.

Well, as is quite typical with me, I probably went overboard with my distressing.  I distressed the edges of each piece of cardstock first with my cutter tool.  I then created creases in the background cardstock and sanded them just a little bit. Then I distressed by applying Distress Inks with my blending tool.  I even added a piece of swirls grungeboard that I distressed with my Distress Inks.  Of course, I had to stamp my Rubbernecker collage image before I started any distressing.  I put so much work into distressing various sized pieces of this beautiful designer paper (sorry, I don't know the name of it as I bought it at a garage sale last summer) and kept changing my course of action that I decided to also make a bookmark to go with the card.  See that designer paper as a back board for my photograph?  That is what the designer paper originally looked like before I started distressing it.

Before I applied the flowers, I sprayed Copper Glimmer Mist over the card and bookmark.

Here is a complete list of the supplies I used in my design:

Stamps:  Music Background (SKU 54350); Time Collage (SKU 1611SO) all by Rubbernecker

Cardstock:  Chocolate Chip, Very Vanilla, designer paper

Inks:  Memento Black, Vintage Photo and Tea Dye Distress Inks

Accessories:  Swirls Grungeboard, MFT Leaves Die-namics, copper brads and cord, peach flowers, Tim Holtz blending tool, eyelet, Cropadile, cutters' tool, Copper Glimmer mist

Please be sure to swing by the CCEE Stampers' blog and see what wonderful creations Cindy, Frances, Tosh, Shirley, and Joanne have created as well as get the details for playing along with us!