Distress Paint: Alchemy – turning cardstock into Vintage Gold

I have been busy in my apothecary creating a fast and dirty formula to create a vintage forged gold effect.  I am going to share that with you today.

Now you can watch me perform alchemy in the lightning speed video below,  however in solidarity with my people (since South Africans generally are inflicted with the curse of slow, expensive, data-capped internet) – I am also going to share my magical formula in the step by step picture tutorial underneath it.

(edited to add – something went wrong when I tried saving the video – it is cutting all the video frames in half – don't know why – you’re stuck with the pic tutorial then! 
2nd Edit - apparently this is a bug well common to Movie Maker 2.6 devotees like myself who try to run it on newer Operating Systems - boo - I think I have lost my favourite editing tool but more importantly I am going to have to reshoot this whole video)

STEP ONE

Cut out your pieces – I have used the Tim Holtz Alterations Clock Key and Pocket Watch die and a circle die from Spellbinders to cut out the window face with the intention of turning it into a pocket locket. 

 

STEP TWO

Create the background Patina by covering the whole die-cut with an opaque coat of Black Soot Distress Paint (DP – from now on) – this is very important in crating that vintage feel - so don't skip it. 

STEP THREE

Choose the embossing folder pattern - I like to use something with a highly detailed pattern as it gives me more texture, and more texture makes the piece look more vintagey. So I chose the Sizzix Alterations Damask Folder.  Run it through your Embosser.

 

STEP FOUR

Dab a glob of Tarnished Brass DP on your work surface or craft sheet and using the blending tool with the the foam applicator, gently begin burnish the embossed bits.  The trick here is to apply very light pressure in a staccato or brisk up and down motion.  Keep building up layers .  I prefer to highlight the embossed bits heavily in the Tarnished Brass DP but leave the debossed bits, slightly less covered in paint so some of the Black soot shows through.  This is what is going to achieve the vintage patina effect.

  

STEP FIVE

The next step is optional.  To create the gleaming glint of vintage gold – over the Tarnished Brass DP rub on some Gilder’s Paste or Perfect Pearls. This has a two-fold effect – it blends and evens out the sponged on paint and the gold particles settle into the debossed areas such that it matts everything out but at the same time adds more gleam to the “precious metal”

 

STEP SIX

To finish it off or seal it – there are three things that you could do.

You can coat in Ranger’s Glossy Accents – this looks super shiny and slick.

Or you can heat emboss it with CLEAR embossing powder. Don't use gold embossing powder because you will lose all the cool dry embossed detail.

Or you might just want to take the fast and dirty way out and either spray clear lacquer varnish or paint high-gloss varnish onto it.  Which is what I did for the pocket locket – The heat gun was a little too fiddly for me and I didn't want to leave my chair – and that is the primary reason why I chose this method over the other.

And there you have it – You’ll be turning pieces of paper into gold in no time at all.

A few other details about this project – the stamp is from a South African company called Heritage Stamps, though I have to admit that I did tweak her eyelashes and put on more eyeliner for her..  I stamped on Ranger’s Specialty Stamping paper and I coloured the image with Ranger Distress Markers.  To create the vintage glass feel – I gave the face window a generous coat of Glossy Accents.  Once that dried – I decided it would look cooler with deep cracks in the glass, so I overcoated that with crackle accents.

I still haven't decided what I am going to do with my paper gold pocket locket.  Maybe I could swing it off of the top of a tag and turn it into a bookmark.

In the end after all the tweaks this is what it turned out like.