 To quote Ranger, "Distress Stains are fluid water-based dyes for papers and other porous surfaces." They do not contain any kind of fixative or sealer which means that even after they are dry, they will react with water, which creates some interesting creative possibilities. They are available in the full Distress palette of 36 colours plus white and three metallics.
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 The colour you see on the label or through the translucent plastic is not always indicative of the true colour, so I like to stick my own colour label on the top of each lid. These 'labels' are actually cheap hole reinforcement stickers from a stationery shop (paper ones rather than plastic). Attach to the lid, then swipe the dabber over it to get a realistic colour swatch.
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With the lid firmly in place, shake the bottle lightly before use, then draw colour randomly onto your card with the dabber top. Add just a couple of patches of colour, then introduce your second colour, overlapping slightly as you go.
| Don't worry if it looks very 'scribbly' at this stage, the colours will blend together later.
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Continue to add more colours until you have the tag more or less covered.
| Mist liberally with water and the colours will blend together.
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 While the colours are wet, you can manipulate them slightly by moving the card around and encouraging drips and runs.
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 If you work over a waterproof surface such as a non-stick sheet, you can let the drips collect and use them to create a second piece.
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 Pat a new piece of card onto the collected drips of colour.
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 This creates a different kind of pattern to simply drawing with the stains.
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 For a smoother colour blend, spritz the non stick mat with water before patting your card onto it.
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For a mottled finish, dry the card with a heat tool then go back and pat it into the colour again. Repeat until you have the coverage you like.
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 On this tag I used Squeezed Lemon, Spiced Marmalade, Scattered Straw, Rusty Hinge and Brushed Corduroy.
The mottled areas were created by dipping my hand in water and shaking it over the tag.
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 This tag uses a family of blues: Tumbled Glass, Salty Ocean, Peacock Feathers, Evergreen Bough and Broken China. This is the tag shown in the step by step photos above, but it has also been dried then 'dipped' in some pooled colour as well.
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 Of course you don't have to stick to a single colour family. This tag uses the same blues as the previous tag (more water makes them paler), but with the addition of Picked Rasperry and Seedless Preserves.
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Painting and Stamping with Stains
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It is possible to stamp with Distress Stains, but they are so liquid that you will not get a true reproduction of the stamp, more of a watery, fuzzy impression of it.
The metallic Distress Stains have a little more body and that is what I used (Brushed Pewter) to stamp in the top right corner of this tag.
It is also possible to use the Stains like paint to colour in an image stamped with waterproof ink. As these are dyes, they soak into the surface of the card very quickly which often causes feathering and bleeding outside of the area you wish to paint. The exact amount will depend on the cardstock you are using.
For that reason, you need to take care not to overload your brush and don't paint right up to the edge of the area until you can judge how much the colour will bleed on your particular cardstock.
Just a note on lighting - this is the same tag as shown in the row of tags above, but the photograph was taken at a different time of day, resulting in quite a different 'cast' to the colours.
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This is a tag that I made for the recently launched Chocolate Baroque Challenge Blog. You can read all the details of how I made it over on my blog today, plus you can see a new batch of distress stain backgrounds I created this week.
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Materials used in this project are available online at
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 I originally ran this series in 2013 and this time round, I am using my own tutorials to inspire me to create a new piece of artwork to share with you each week. I love to create and I am also passionate about inspiring and enabling others to create too. I hope that this email gets your mojo working and you feel motivated to get into your crafty space and have a go.  PS - if your creation features Chocolate Baroque stamps, then why not share on our Facebook Group or our wonderful private forum. In both places you will find a wonderful community of like minded Chocolate Baroque fans.
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