Think Crafts Blog – Craft Ideas and Projects – CreateForLess

When Tropical Storm Fay hit Florida she left behind 26″ of rain in one day in my community. My husband was home from work 3 days because it was impossible to drive down flooded streets that had become a playground for children to boogie board and splash around. I turned to my crafts for comfort and made cards to send to friends, once mail service was restored! We were lucky not to have any damage, but many in our state did. Now Gustav and Hanna have caused serious problems and Ike is not be far behind.

My first thought when I hear a hurricane is headed our way — Where are my most precious photographs? We have two small airtight containers of photos that are tucked away high in a bathroom closet during hurricane season. I can quickly find the containers and put them in the car if we need to evacuate. All these photos have been scanned and placed on CDs and DVDs too. I even scan my scrapbook pages.

We keep the disks in our safety deposit box and also send out copies to friends in different locations around the country.  I can’t really explain it, but for some reason there are certain photos of family and friends that if I lost the photos, I’d really be heartbroken!  It’s not fun to think about hurricanes, tornados, floods, fires, or other catastrophic events that can happen at any time in any place, but it is important to be prepared and think ahead.

My brother’s house was on the fire line of the Oakland, CA fires many years ago.  Even though he knew exactly where he kept a metal box of family photos he said he just didn’t have time to even think when he and his wife were asked to evacuate.  One of his main concerns while waiting for days to find out if he still had a home was that he should have grabbed that box of photos before leaving.  It was a box of family slides our father had taken when we were all kids and my brother was devastated that he might have lost them.  The story has a happy ending, my brother’s house barely suffered smoke damage, but that metal box of family slides has now been scanned and the images on a CD that every family member has a copy of!

Before disaster strikes think about what is most important to you and if you have heirlooms that are priceless to you, consider how to store these items so that in case you must leave your home quickly you can have a better chance of saving the personal treasures.  Never risk your life or the life of a loved one for a material possession, I’m just trying to say that if you plan ahead for emergencies sometimes that knowledge will give you a little more time.

Thoughts and prayers go out to all who face Mother Nature’s storms.  Even the worst of times can be made better with creativity.  Be smart too!  Think ahead and be prepared.

You have the tools, now how do you age, antique, and distress materials?  Here’s a handy guide:

Bleach It!:  Brush or lightly spritz paper with bleach.  Allow colors to fade, dab off any excess.  Lemon juice can also be used.  Heat set once dry.

Coaster It!:  Using a messy cup of coffee or tea, use your paper as a coaster or saucer and let it soak up the coffee or tea that has puddled at the bottom of the cup or glass.  It’s an interesting, realistic touch of distressing.

Crush It!: You can ball up the paper and then smooth out to give aging lines and some instant wear and tear to paper.   The more you crumple it, the more aged and soft the paper will look.  You’ll have a paper with a fine webbing of age lines. 

Ink it!:  Spill a little ink on that paper!  Dribble it!  Puddles of ink are perfect touches of aging.  Allow ink to dry completely before adding any embellishments or photos. 

Iron it!:  For a more polished look, iron distressed paper.  Always use an ironing cloth to protect your ironing board surface and your iron!  Do your best to crush, ink, rip, sand, and more, then use the iron on a warm setting to smooth it all out.

Sand It!:  Using sanding paper, fine steel wool, or an emery board, sand the edges of paper or embellishments.  Skip the sanding paper or emery board over the body of the surface too.  This gives the effect of weathering and aging by wind, sun, and time. 

Speckle or Splatter It!:  Using an acrylic wash or ink, take an old bristle brush or toothbrush and dip into liquid.  Lay background paper or scrapbook page on newspaper or other covered work surface.  Flick brush or toothbrush with your thumb and this sends a fine mist of paint over the paper.  Repeat until you are happy. 

Sponge It!:  Sponge on hints of color using inks, pastels, chalks, paints, tea, coffee, glazes, and watercolors.  Add layer upon layer of color until happy.

Spray It!:  Spray surface with diluted ink, paint, even strong tea or coffee.  Intensify color by repeated spraying.

Tear or Rip It!:  Tearing and ripping paper gives it an aged or distressed look.  You can rip along an edge or right down the middle!  Practice ripping with scrap papers to get a feel of how different papers will rip and tear.  You can also chalk or ink the ripped paper edges to give a more earthy aging effect. 

Tips

• Age builds up on surfaces so to create a realistic aged surface slowly “build” layers of color, stain and paint. Then sand or pound. Then repeat layering of color.
• Step back from your work occasionally and look at the aging effects from a distance. Up close your project may look done, but at a distance you may see it in a different light.
• Gold ages with brown tones, silver with black tones.
• Add shadow with dark hues, highlights with light hues.

Everyone loves the look of antiques! You can easily get that look quickly with the following tools:

Acrylic Paints:  Water down the paint to an inky consistency, which creates what is called a wash (1 part paint to 3 parts water).  Colors of dark blue, patina green, rust, black and burnt amber work best on light color papers while white, light gray and light blue work best on dark colors. Brush light coats onto the paper until happy with the hue.

Antiquing Gel:  This is a thick liquid or gel that is brushed on and then rubbed off leaving a thin film that makes an object look older.  There are a variety of colors from white to black.  For hard surfaces like charms you can age the item by using antiquing gel. 

Chalks or Pastels:  Chalks and pastels can be used to age paper.  Use darker colors and dust chalk around edges, over sanded portions, or all over the surface.  Chalks and pastels need to be “sealed” with a spray finish, fixative or sealer.

Chalk Inks:  A pigment ink that is usually light in saturation and hue.  When dry, it leaves a chalky-like finish.  Lightly sponged onto a paper or surface to antique or age it. Lightly sponge chalk ink over paper in aged colors like mustard, brown, rust, black or patina green.

Coffee and Coffee Grounds:  Coffee can be used for aging and staining just like tea.  Brew up a strong, dark batch of coffee and then you can soak, spray, dribble, or puddle the coffee onto the paper.  Coffee grounds can also be used.  Sprinkle coffee grounds over wet paper and allow to dry.

Fine Grit Sandpaper or Emery Board:  Use the sandpaper or emery board to sand away layers of the paper to give a weathered effect. Use fine grit sandpaper or emery board and sand lightly over different areas of your paper.

Hammer or Mallet:  Here’s a chance to get out all that frustration!  Simply pound areas to give a dented, abused, and ‘seen a few years’ look to paper, metals, fabrics, and plastics.  Some altered artists also use heavy chains to give the same look.

Inks:  Inks used in rubberstamping can be used to antique paper and other surfaces.  Select colors that lend to aged looks like dark yellows, rusty orange and browns, patina greens, dark blacks and off-white whites.  Best application is to lightly sponge ink onto paper in light layers.

Ink Sprays:  Diluted inks in spray bottles used to spritz color onto a surface.  Shade and intensity vary.

Steeped Tea:  Place several tea bags into a bowl and add hot water.  You want at least 3 tea bags to each cup of water.  In other words, you want a strong batch of tea.  Avoid teas that don’t give rich color like green teas.  Spray a mist of strong tea onto the paper and iron it.  The straining will make the paper look old.  Repeat misting until the paper is aged to your perfection.

Walnut Ink:  This is an ink that is speckled, dripped or brushed onto paper that gives a sepia or brown wash to the paper.  Usually a powder that you mix with water, but is also available in liquid form and in a variety of colors.