Embossed Acetate

Hi there peeps.
I thought I'd go through the distressed acetate steps for those of you who've asked about it. I have to tell you; it's messy and you'll probably go through a lot of kitchen roll!
So to begin you'll need a fairly thick acetate (for this I've used 0.18); your embossing folder of choice; I tend to prefer the sizzix ones as they give a deeper press but I have used a cuttlebug one too; you just need to be a bit more careful when removing the paint. Acrylic paint, paintbrush, baby wipes, kitchen towel and an acrylic block. And of course something to emboss with such as a vagabond, cuttlebug etc.

 Once you've embossed the acetate ; working on the "de-bossed" side, cover the surface with paint. (this is Americana - sand) making sure that you get paint into all the recesses.

 Once you've done that you need to take a kitchen roll and wipe the surface a couple of times to remove some of the excess. Keeping  it on the roll helps make sure you don't wipe paint from the recessed areas. You'll probably go through a few pieces of towel!

 You can also wrap a baby wipe around a block and wipe more off too. Then set aside for a while to dry a bit.

 Once it's dried a bit, if you wrap a bit of towel around the block and gently begin to buff in a circular motion you'll begin to get the rest of the surface clear and bring the shine back.

 In the end you should get something like this; practice and experimentation is the key. But even the ones you are not too happy with will still make good backgrounds for tags and cards. Different colours will give you different effects.

 Some of the colours look good on white backgrounds too!

So there you have the process I use to get the backgrounds.

I hope you give it a go, it gives a lovely texture to your cards and projects!
Have fun.