The two backgrounds I’m sharing today I created with one technique, but with different color schemes, generating a completely different atmosphere.

I added some texture paste through a stencil and let it air-dry for about an hour to make sure it was dry. Then I sprayed with Distress Stains and heat-dried. The next layer consisted of several droplets of Distress Oxide, since I knew Oxide would always dominate dye ink – which I learned from the Tim Holtz demos I watched recently.

What I really like about Ranger’s Texture Paste is that when it’s dry, it reacts to color mediums the same way as paper: it takes color really well, and gives it up when you want to lift it off with a damp paper towel.

I chose a warm autumn palette for the first tag, with Peeled Paint, Twisted Citron and Wild Honey, with some splats of Cracked Pistachio on top.

For the second tag I aimed at a vintage look, using Old Paper, Frayed Burlap, Bundled Sage, and Hickory Smoke, with some drops of Tim Holtz’s latest color Speckled Egg on top. I also sprayed some Brushed Pewter Distress Mica Spray, which is the silver color, over the entire tag once everything else had dried.

The stencils were both by Tim Holtz, one small and one large.

All in all I really liked this technique: it was easy, relatively quick and ideal to create some great looking backgrounds.