Day 31-My first Blog hop

If you're following the Artsy Addicts Blog hop you arrived at this page from Chic Scrapbook Designs by Limor Webber and after reading this blog your next step in the hop is The Best Day of My Life . (It seems that The Best Day of My Life blog wasn't having the best day and didn't add a blog today so here's the next link Miss Danielle Renee . I hope you enjoy your hop here-don't forget to leave a comment to be entered in a drawing for today's project.

Today brings me to my first blog hop-one for the Artsy Addicts group on Facebook.  Today's hop is all about teaching one of your favorite techniques.  One of my favorites and one of the easiest is Faux Leather. This technique is so simple although it does take a little planning as it does take a while to dry-to speed up drying you can iron or use your heat gun but I usually just make the Faux Leather a day or so before I want to use it.

Faux Leather is super easy to make and takes only a few basic supplies that most artsy ladies and gents will have in their stash!

For this technique you will need Ranger's Perfect Refresher solution, cardstock (colors of your choice) and stamp/distress pads (again colors of your choice) and paint or gesso (optional).  You can also use an Iron or Heat Gun (I will explain this later).

Saturate the front and back of the cardstock with Perfect Refresher solution

Rub solution over paper to coat completely, this will soften the paper and give it an oily feel.

Crumple and uncrumple the cardstock until you get the amount of  wrinkles you want (experiment with less or more). Each piece will turn out different.  Using the same colors on multiple pieces of paper will make them similar and coordinate but no two pieces are exactly alike.

When you have all the wrinkles in the cardstock you want completely uncrumple the paper and lay flat on a covered surface.

Using ink pads or dry brushing on paint, apply color to the cardstock, starting with the lightest colors first and adding as few or as many colors as you desire.  Here I used the Distress ink pad in Milled Lavender



Second I added Aged Mahogany

And finally Vintage Photo.

If you want your cardstock to be smooth you can iron it using a craft iron or regular household iron.  To speed drying, or if you used a pigment ink you can use a heat gun to set the ink.  I usually just leave mine on a flat surface to "cure" for 24 hours or so because I like the bumpy texture of not ironing it.

Several other pieces of "Faux Leather" I made.

And now a few pics of the project I made from my "Faux Leather" paper.

Cover of a Piano Hinged book made with "Faux Leather" paper

Pictures of the first page of each signature



 Thanks for stopping by for my first blog hop.  I hope you enjoyed yourself, I certainly had fun working on it.  Don't forget to continue on in your hop with The Best Day of My Life . A huge Thank You to Angee Lee Butler and Marion Smith for organizing this hop!