My Top 5 Favorite Scrapbooking /Stamping Techniques of All Time

 

1. DISTRESSING: There are several techniques that you can do to your paper and even your photos.
   

   a) Paper Tearing: Tearing your paper leaves a rugged border to your layout. CTMH has a white core cardstock. So, when you are tearing CTMH cardstock you are left with a white torn border.
   

   b) Sanding: Sanding your paper leaves a very nice distressed look. Especially when using CTMH paper b/c of the white core cardstock showing through.
   

   c) Inking Edges: Ink the edges of your cardstock in a chocolate or cocoa to leave a distressed/antique look.
   

   d) Crinkling: Lightly mist your cardstock with water and crinkle it up into a ball. Let it dry. Then unfold and you are left with a weathered looking piece of cardstock. After this, you can sand your crinkled piece of cardstock to distress it even further.
   

   e) Roughing Edges: Using an edge distresser or you can just use a pair of scissors. Open your scissors and using one side of the blade, distress your cardstock.
   

2. MASKING: This allows you to stamp several images without marrying them. This allows images to look like are behind other images. Stamp your image on your paper. Then, stamp the same image on a post-it note or scrap paper. Cut out the image from the post-it note or scrap paper. Cut as close to the edge of the stamped image as you can. This is your mask. Place your mask over the original image on your paper. Now, stamp the next image to where it overlaps and covers part of the mask. Remove the mask and you'll see that it looks like the second image is behind the first one.
   
3. SECOND GENERATION STAMPING: This technique will add some depth to your project by creating a darker and lighter shade of the same ink color. Take your stamp and ink it up and then stamp off on a scratch piece of paper. Now, stamp a second time on your project without cleaning the stamp. The result is a lighter image. You could continue stamping if you're looking for an even lighter image which would be considered 3^rd and 4^th generation stamping.
   
4. STAMP KISSING: Ink up a solid stamp (Example: alphabet stamp), then get a background stamp (Example: dots, lines, flowers, etc.). Place the stamp/block face up. Then, take the solid stamp and kiss it directly onto the background stamp. Then, stamp on your project for a textured version of your solid stamp. You could also use a 2^nd color when doing this by inking up your background stamp in a darker color and your solid stamp in a lighter color. When you stamp kiss the light to the dark background color the pattern will appear on the solid stamp in that color.
   
5. RANDOM STAMPING: This technique allows you to create your own custom background paper. I would find 3 different size stamps and then start with your largest of the 3 stamps. Stamp randomly over your cardstock. Take your middle size stamp and stamp randomly over your cardstock. Then, take the smallest stamp and fill in spaces. I like stamping off my cardstock leaving half the image on the cardstock. This gives dimension to your project. Be sure to also turn your image different directions while stamping for even more dimension.