**The Craft Donkey**: Kraft Wood Grain Tutorial

Thursday, March 14, 2013

Kraft Wood Grain Tutorial

I've been in love with wood grain probably before it was a huge thing. I also have an obsession with Kraft paper. The wood grain kraft paper I'm working with today is made by Stampin It Up. Check out the link for the other papers this came with. I wanted to show today just how incredibly easy it is to alter this paper to take the shape of any color wood you like!

Above is all I used. 2 inks of choice I choose a sepia and a timber brown. Then a blending tool, a wet wipe or wet paper towel, and a stain of choice. The more colors you choose the more depth the wood has.

I started off using a brown ink of choice and my blending tool. This is just a sepia color.

After the Sepia is covering the piece the way you'd like, take the wet wipe and wipe down the piece. This will remove any ink that is sitting on top of the embossing. You can see the difference in the picture. The stain will still remain on some of the embossing but not as dark.

Then I took my stain and swiped it across the entire piece. You could choose to do only section of the piece, I was okay doing the entire piece. See how the paper absorbs it. But the embossed sections resists it.

Take the wet wipe to the piece again. You can see the difference.

You can then allow to air dry or do what my impatient rear end does and take the heat gun to it for instant results. Lovely isn't it?!?! Now take your Staz on and run it along the paper as you like. I do not use a blending tool, I apply it straight to the paper from the pad just making swipes as I see fit.

And there you have it. My aged dirty wood grain!!!

This show what I started with and what my finished product looked like. Like I said you can make this as light or as dark as you like. This paper had pre-embossed wood grain on it, however if you have a wood grain stamp you can use clear embossing powder to get the exact same affect. I've done that many times as well.