Day 2 of 12 Days of Distressing - Masking

Day 2 Masking - Masking is such a cool way to add to your pages without creating bulky layouts. I love masking and you don't just have to use a product made for masking. You can use just about anything that is flat in shape. I have used chipboard shapes, letters, stencils, you name it!! On this first layout I used a Tim Holtz mask in the upper left corner. Tim Holtz masks have a sticky side to prevent slipping, but I reuse mine over an over weather they are sticky or not! I just applied my mask and sprayed some glitter mist, in this case, some Smooch Spritz over the area of the mask. Here is a layout I did just using some Maya Road acrylic letters. Smaller shapes can be trickier but just use some repositional adhesive on them to help hold them in place and that should work just fine. I have used shapes like butterflies, such as the large masked image in my Day 1 "Discover" lo. Another fun trick is creating your own shapes by using your Cricut or using stencils for a reverse masking look. I used a blending tool and inked over the top of the letters.
I normally will use either a glitter mist or just ink over the mask using a blending tool like the one I have pictured below. Sometimes I use both mist and ink to get a more multicolored sparkly look. I will mist first and then ink over all of it using my blending tool. When you use the blending tool, don't stamp it down, but smoosh it around in a circular fashion to help blend nicely.
When I use inks over masks I will tend to spread my ink over a larger area of my paper. Then I will mist over it a little. It looks neat when you have some over spray of mist that gets over the masked area. Check out my "You" layout in my pre-12 Days of Christmas post, because it has a great example of this.