Tuesday Tips and Tricks: Distress It!

Hey everyone! Samantha here with this week's Tuesday Tips and Tricks. Today's lesson is all about Rock Candy - the crackle paint, that is! Sorry candy lovers, this one is all scrap related :)

If you don't know about Distress Crackle Paints, let me tell you a little bit about them before we get started. Rock Candy is a clear, glossy crackle paint. The crackle paints in the Ranger Distress line are one step crackle paints. Now, if you have ever tried to crackle paint a piece of furniture, then you will definitely appreciate the idea of a one step crackle paint (usually crackle paints are two steps and very difficult to achieve the correct ratio of the two mediums involved).

It comes in this neat little jar, and the screw top lid contains a paint brush! That makes these crackle paints super easy to use!

So on my project below, I used the Rock Candy crackle paint on my main image:

Here is a close up so you can see the awesomeness:

I did a really neat technique with the dress form's image. First, I stamped the images in pink and purple inks.

Next, I painted over them with Rock Candy Crackle Paint. I used a pretty thick layer of paint. You don't want to go too light on the crackle paint or else you won't be able to see the crackles.

It takes a while to dry, and on the bottle it says once cracks start to form you can gently heat it with a heating tool to finish drying. Well, being the impatient person that I am, I did that! I have learned from heating Distress crackle paints in the past. . . heat setting gives you smaller crackles. When air drying, if you use a thick layer of paint, you will get larger crackles. In contrast, with a thinner coat of paint, you get much smaller crackles.

When it was dry, I inked over it with some light brown ink to give it a little bit of a weathered look. Then I was left with this neat cracked glass type effect over the stamped images!! Neat, huh?

Now head over to the iCopic store and pick up a bottle of Rock Candy and experiment away. This stuff is so fun and gives such a neat effect!

Have a wonderful day, folks!

SP and Company Stamps

Posted in: Distress Crackle Paint , Tuesday Tips