Together By Design Featuring Distress Oxides

Together by Design is a monthly collaboration where a small group of designers all create with products from the same featured brand. Each of us chooses a favorite product and puts our own creative spin on it, showing just how many different ways one brand can inspire. Follow along, explore every project, and discover new designers and new favorites along the way.

This month’s featured brand: Distress Oxides

NOTE: all supplies are linked to multiple sources in the thumbnails at the end of this blog post.

Here is a list of designers participating this month:

Jessica: www.lovenotesbyjess.com/blog; @jessica.vasher
Jean: www.studio-jd.com; @jean.studiojd
Maggie: www.schoolhousestamps.blogspot.com; @teacher11494
Tracy: https://redsas.co; @redsas

My project got pretty detailed, and I apologize for that, but let’s go ahead and run through the details! I began by creating the background first using Distress Oxide sprays in Vintage Photo, Walnut Stain and Broken China. I did also use regular Distress spray in Gathered Twigs. I was drying my panel between ink applications, so that I would get some good color variations. Once I was satisfied with the background, I did some stamping using various Tim Holtz sets from my stash, and trimmed it down using A2 Postage Rectangles. I knew that I wanted some texture as well, so I mixed some Ranger Transparent Texture Paste with some Distress Salvaged Patina Paint and added that through the TCW Mini Well Rounded Stencil. I’m not even sure if this stencil is still available, but any stencil that you love would work just great!

For the focal image, I stamped the Floral Trims stamp onto a panel of watercolor paper using VersaFine Onyx Black ink and heat set that using clear embossing powder. I then did some watercoloring using Distress Oxide ink pads in Salvaged Patina and Walnut Stain. While I was creating my background panel, I went ahead and created another panel that I used to cut the frame surrounding the floral. That was trimmed out using the same postage set and adhered to the floral.

The background panel was adhered to a black panel for contrast, and then adhered to the card base. I added some bits from the Tim Holtz Curator Ephemera Pack, as well as some Field Notes PET Tape from 49 and Market. The floral was adhered using foam tape and some black butterflies were added to tie in all of the black stamping. The sentiment is from the Tim Holtz Theories Quote Chips set that I added some Salvaged Patina ink to and then heat embossed it with clear embossing powder to give it a bit of shine.

That does it for this project! I hope you enjoyed it, and I hope you’ll stop by again next month to find out what our featured product or brand will be! Thanks so much for stopping by, and I hope you have a fabulous day!

Supply List

Affiliate links used at no cost to you. What does this mean? If you use the links within this post to make a purchase, I receive a small commission, which allows me to continue to post crafty content for your enjoyment. I truly appreciate your support!

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Latest Instagram Posts

Happy Friday, Friends! I hope you’ve had a great week and are ready for an awesome weekend! Today’s project is featuring the Timeless Love die from @simonsaysstamp Always There release. I paired it with the older Peony and Leaves die for a soft, pretty floral. Enjoy today and have yourself a fabulous weekend!

Happiest Wednesday to you! I got myself in a grungy mood with the Dewpierce Butterfly from @simonsaysstamp latest release, Always There, so I created this card the other day. Sometimes when I think of grungy, I think of darker, neutral colors but I put a spin on this with some pastels instead. You can find all of the deets, as well as more pictures and a full product list over on my blog at redsas.co. Hope you all have a fabulous day!

Today I’m participating in a Simon Says Stamp Instagram hop, and we’re featuring the Always There release! To start from the beginning of the hop, head to @simonsaysstamp!

Happy Sunday, Friends! Hope your weekend has been amazing so far! The weather here in my area of Virginia has been amazing this weekend! Which is awesome, considering all of the rain that we’ve had lately. Here’s my second card featuring the super cute Mr. Snappy, from @simonsaysstamp Always There release, doing his grilling thang! 🔥

Happiest Saturday, Friends! I hope everyone is having an awesome day so far! I created this black out card the other day, which features the new Peony and Bells Embossing Folder from the @simonsaysstamp Always There release. I really enjoy this technique because it’s not about being perfect! Being perfect is cool and all, but perfection rarely works out in my experience. You can find all of the details over on my blog at redsas.co. Enjoy your day!

Spellbinders Trailside Birthday Raccoon

Hello Friends, and thanks for joining me! My friend, Allison Frazier, has a brand new collection with Spellbinders, and I was super excited to get to play with this Trailside Trio set! There are lots of products and add-ons for this set, but for today, I’m just playing with the trio. Let’s go through the details.

NOTE: all supplies are linked to multiple sources in the thumbnails at the end of this blog post.

I love this set because my friend designed it, but I also love this set because I live on several acres of land, and we see these same animals on our property every day! I chose to play with the raccoon, because there is a raccoon that comes to visit me almost daily! She came the first time as a baby with her Mom back in 2021, and just last year, she brought her very own baby to visit me as well. She does allow me to pet her and hang out with her on the deck. So there you have it, a little glimpse into my life! I’ll add a pic of her at the bottom of this post, if you’re interested in seeing my raccoon friend!

I first die cut all of the pieces of the raccoon from different gray colors, white and black cardstock. On the white portions, I did some light ink blending using Flannel ink before assembling the raccoon with liquid glue. The design of this card came about because I actually had all of these flowers already assembled, so I thought a flower field could be super cute.

I used an older DOML set to cut the hills from green cardstock, and did some ink blending on the tops of those using Pearfection ink. Before adhering those to the card base, I did some blue ink blending to create a sky using Cadette ink. The flowers were adhered using glue, while the raccoon was adhered using foam tape. The sentiment was gold foiled onto black cardstock and adhered with liquid glue as well. To finish up, I added a few gold metallic pearls to some of the flower centers to tie in the gold sentiment.

That does it for this project! I hope you like it, and I hope you’ll swing over and check out Allison’s collection on the Spellbinders website. Thanks again for joining me, and I hope you have a wonderful day!

This is my friend, Gimpy. She got this name because when she was much younger, she had a hurt foot for quite a while, and the name Gimpy just stuck. It’s silly, I know! She’s a very sweet girl, and I enjoy her visits!