How-to Stamping with Water on Distress Oxide Background

One of my favorite techniques is stamping with water on a reactive background.  Stamping with water has been around a long time and in my opinion, isn’t used enough.  Usually, the reactive background is Distress Oxide or Distress Inks.  The results are just amazing and I love love it!  The best part is this stamping with water is so super simple.  It works with any stamps you have but I do recommend using large images.  I made three cards using this technique with various results.

I used Distress Oxide Inks for these cards.  Distress Oxide inks are going to produce a must more subtle look than the Distress Inks.

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How-to Stamping with Water on Distress Oxide Background

First, go grab whatever color of Distress Oxide Ink or Distress Ink you want to use.

You’ll need ink blending tools to blend ink onto the cardstock.  Or you can swipe the ink pad directly on the cardstock.  That’s a lot of ink but produces an almost solid background color.

We’re using plain cardstock for this, not watercolor paper.

The key to the technique is a spray bottle for water.  One that produces a fine mist works best. I like the Tim Holtz Distress Sprayer.

Okay, ink blend your background or swipe the ink pad directly on the cardstock.  Don’t fuss too much about blending everything perfectly. Just make sure there’s plenty of ink on the paper.

Spray the stamp with a light mist of water and stamp.  Stamp your image like you normally would EXCEPT let the stamp make contact with the inked background just a little bit longer than you normally would. This allows the Distress Oxide ink to react a little bit better.

And that’s it.  Simple and so pretty!

Something to note:  If you are using a stamp platform, you can double stamp the image.  Just be careful of how much water is on the cardstock.  Dry it between stamping just do be safe.

Looking for more ideas using Distress Oxide Ink?
Distress Oxide Ink on Glossy Photo Paper
Ink Resist with Bold Black Images