Antiquing or Distressing a Photo or Scrapbook page.

[sarah]

So like I have said before, I am the kind of girl that reads everything I can about how to do something and then I figure it out my own way. If you google how to add the distress or antique look to your scrapbook pages, then you will find a list of at least a dozen different techniques from tea bags, to bleaching. The list goes on. And I have tried them all. And to be honest, I didn't like the results to any of the 'tests' But if you want to try the ideas, please be my guest. I really beleive that you can't do your best crafting until you have really gotten in there and figured out what works and what doesnt work.  First you need to figure out if you want to actually antique your photo or just the page. I would say that almost every single time that I do an antiqued page, I also antique the photo. If you decided that you didnt want to edit the photo then skip the first few insturctions to this tutorial, and then when you decide that the page would look better if the pic was also distressed, then come on back and read the first instructions. ;)
btw. it shows that we only have a few followers, but I have gotten several emails from people who are excited to see what I have in store. So please spread the word and if you have anything you want to post, let me know!!

So here are a few things you will need. If you don't have them in your house, don't worry these items are super cheap and would cost less than 5 bucks and would last for several pages. You will need

-your picture

-your scrappaper (s)

-paper towel

-brown acrylic paint

-sandpaper

-some place to work on with an edge.
Also real quick, don't forget the power of the edit tool on your computer or online. You can also do some very cool things with photo editing software, or even just by visiting a site that allows you to edit your photos free. You can do so many cool things this way.

So first you wanna get your picture and wipe off the front with a dry paper towel. Then take the picture and line one side of the photo up against your working board. I have tried two different ways of sanding. One way was up and down along the edge. This really didn't give me that much of an effect, so I began to sand out. Instead of up and down, I sanded from the edge of the picture outward. Do as little or as much sanding of the edges that you want. This is something that you can practice with to see how you like the effects of the different levels of sanding. On this particular photo I really wanted the edges to be sanded hard, so I actually went in toward the photo about a quarter of an inch and sanded out. I hope this doesn't confuse anyone

. The picture above is what the photo looks like after I sanded the edges like I wanted.

 Next I lightly sanded the actual photo. Make sure you want to do this, because if you are sanding a picture with a face or something you really want to stand out you don't wanna sand too much.

The picture to the right is what the picture looks like after I have the photo completely sanded like I want. I made sure not to scratch her face, but really wanted the rest of the picture scratched up more. Now if you don't want to antique the photo, only wanted to distress it, then you are finished with the photo. The next couple steps are only if you want to give your photo an antique or sepia looking effect.

Next I took the brown acrylic paint, and please if you have some extra photos that you really don't care about, take different color paints and try them out to see what kind of effect they would have. You would be really suprised once you start experimenting. I took the brown pain, and used my finger to lightly paint the entire photo. You don't want to completely paint the photo.
Make sure you get the edge of the picture as well. You want to go over the sanded part of the edges to make sure that the paint kind of sinks in. Without wasting any time, move on to the next step.

Now with your paper towel, wipe off as much of the access paint that you can. don't be afraid to really rub the glossy part of the photo. The parts that you sanded will have absorbed the paint already and now you want to wipe off as much of the paint as you can that has not been absorbed. If you get done with this step and want it to look more brown, go back over this step and do it again.

And here is what my photo looks like after its been sanded, painted, and cleaned. lol. The picture has been through a lot at this point, so put it somewhere it can dry while you finish the rest of the page.













While your new distressed or antique pic is drying, get out the paper that you chose to go with the picture. I really wanted to make sure my page was girly but also wanted to add a lot of brown. I picked this beautiful pink and brown flower pattern paper. When the picture was dry, I matted the picture with a glue stick. (btw...don't use those stupid sticky things they sell at hobby lobby, just use glue sticks, makes the pages look better and its much easier to deal with) So I glued the pic to the selected paper then cut the paper to make the picture look framed.

Then I pretty much did the same thing to the paper that I did to my photo. I sanded it, and I wanted it to look really distressed so I sanded it pretty heavy. And then I also painted it like I did with the photo. Make sure to only do one side at a time on the paper because the paper will absorb the paint quickly and you really don't want the paper to absorb too much of the paint. I sanded the whole frame, then painted the right part of the frame and quickly wiped it off. If you dont want to use your finger, then put a glob of paint on the paper towel and use that as a make shift paint brush.
Again, if you dont want the page to look antiqued but just distressed, please skip the painting part.

And here is the distressed matted picture. Don't forget that if you want the whole page to be distressed you can do the same with every accent piece of paper. You can see pictures below of entire antiqued, or distressed pages.

And here is the page 'finished.' I will be adding more accents and embelishments and even another photo or two, but you get the jist of how it will look. I sanded most of the other pieces of accent papers, and painted them. It kind of brings the whole page together.

On the page to the right, I actually skipped the entire sanding part and just added the paint to the green and yellow poem and picture frames.

ON the picture to the left, I actually only distressed the picture, which basically means that I just sanded the sides. I then matted the picture to a square cardstock to give it a little extra special look. Of course you can't really see it through photos, but it looks really cool in person. It gives the picture a 3D effect since it comes off the paper about a quarter of an inch.

On the picture to the right I only antiqued the photos and not the paper.

On the picture to the left, I actually sanded the picture to make the edges look like they had seriously faded. I did it in an oval. Then I only antiqued a couple of my accent chipboards. I love how this one turned out. Never be afraid to try these techniques on colorful pages. Really the best advice I can give anyone on scrapbooking, or really on any craft is experiment, experiment, experiment. Don't afraid to get your hands dirty. Have fun and good luck. I would love to see everyones pages who tried out my techniques.