Tim Holtz Distress inks-review

                                                            Tim Holtz Distress inks

Ive heard many people say "I cant get on with them" or "they are not my style". This happens when people are not really clear about what they are getting before they buy it. In this post I wanna cover the topics of what Distress inks are "Good for" and what they are "not for". Hopefully I can give you enough of an insight to decide if you wanna purchase some or even if you already have some not to give up so easily!

Here's the inks i have:

Good for: Giving a vintage look to paper. Gone are the days of burning the edge of paper and dipping it in tea. Tim has created the perfect inks to get the old treasure map effect. You can choose from; Vintage photo, old paper, antique linen and tea dye. I personally like to use antique linen for the main colour and brushed coudory for the egdes.

Not for: Stamping images to colour in. I'm sure you could very carefully use your markers to colour in the images but these inks are water based so the alcohol in the pen will cause the ink to move. On the plus side you can spray these inks with a water mister and get a whole new range of effects.

Good for: Blending. These ink blend amazingly together and having all these variants on the same colour mean you can making some amazing colour gradients.

Blended using Chipped sapphire, stormy sky and tumbled glass.

Not for: Stamping super clear images. Again being water based means the colour breaks up on the stamp so you will get a very textured faded look when stamping with them. This I feel is where people make the mistake. They use black soot to stamp and image and don't like the effect but this feature means you can make amazing backing papers! Take a background stamp and choose an ink a bit darker than your paper colour and stamp away! Don't give up on them, use them in a different way and see what happens!

Great for: Finishing edges. Sometimes we stamp a sentiment then cut it out, adhere it to our card and it looks odd. This is because the edges are UN-finished! these inks make giving your card a finished looked easy! Get a blending sponge and lightly in circle motions apply colour to the edge of your paper. keep building until you get the desired effect. Ill post an example below.

 If after reading this you are thinking about trying these inks here is my recommendations for which ones to try first:

• Black soot  (Black)
• Antique linen  (light brown/ cream)
• Brushed corduroy (Brown)
• Stormy sky  (Blue)
• Dusty concord  (Purple)
• Peeled paint  (Green)
• Tattered rose (Pink)
• Fired Brick (Red)

There are a few other things I could say about these inks but I will leave them for another post. For now all I can say is play around with them. Ask your fellow crafters for ideas, watch you tube videos and read blogs. Don't be so quick to decide they are not for you. These are very versatile inks with a lot of possibilities!

Dayle~

P.S Ive never really been good at writing so please forgive any mistakes I may have  made.