/* */ Beulah Bee: Devil or Angel?

May 04, 2015

Devil or Angel?


My entry for Tim's May tag features a snapshot from the Idea-ology Photobooth strips along with pieces from the vellum Expedition ephemera pack, a metal number brad and the School House stencil.

I thought I'd share a few tidbits regarding my distress techniques rather than provide a step-out since Tim's got that covered.

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I distressed the photo by peeling off the back so it would be thin enough to scrunch then flattened it out, pasted the backing back on and inked the edges.

A liberal amount of water was used with red brick and iced spruce to tint the texture paste and background. Naturally, the tag warped a bit so I flattened it out with some heavy books overnight.

There's adhesive-backed metallic mesh behind the photo and I used text rub-on's for the question marks. I also wanted the hole reinforcement on the tag to show so I cut my background papers around it.


I used a typewriter for the text on the shield. To insert it into the machine, I used washi tape to temporarily fix it to a larger piece of paper.

I distressed the shield with sand paper and tinted the edges with colored pencils.

I removed the tabs from the number brad then flattened it out with a rubber mallet. I darkened the numbers a bit with a fine permanent marker.


To tone down the color of the arrow which was originally a very bright orange-red, I used a colored pencil in a complementary color, blue-green (which is opposite orange on the color wheel).

This is a good trick to become familiar with when going for a distressed look because adding a color's complement is a proven way to tone down the original hue by reducing it's intensity.

To paste the arrow, I marked off where it would be then scraped away the stenciled letters underneath so it would lay flat on the background.


Well, I think that's everything and once again, I enjoyed the challenge of this month's tag.  Tim sure did pull out all the stops this month and I hope you are inspired to create something too!