March Cards for Charity: Distress Oxide Backgrounds

I have finished the 10 cards for March for the charity at my friend's church. They have a sale every February, and sell cards to buy blankets for the homeless and for accident victims. It's my goal to make 10 cards per month for a year to donate to this cause. You can see my other posts like this here and here.

For March I decided to make lots of Distress Oxide blended backgrounds. I started blending with just blending tools and ink pads (those will be in another post). It was taking me a long time to make each, so I decided to switch it up and use Distress Oxide sprays.

I absolutely love this die from Impression Obsession (Die365-W Good Wishes Word Block). It was always good, but it fits in so well with what's going on in the world today. I decided to just cut it out of white cardstock.

So about the Oxide sprays. There are some pros and cons to them, and this is just my opinion and my experience. The pros: They are FAST to use. They create a background very quickly. They are FUN to use also. It's really hard to stop. Just spray another color! Occasionally I would stop and sop up extra color onto another piece of cardstock and then spray some more. I also like the blends I get with these, in that they are all jumbled up. I like some of the splotchiness I got.

I had to spray these in a box, but that's not so bad. The main thing I didn't like is that I didn't think the colors were as bright as I wanted. Maybe I need more experience with them, but I did spend some time making these. Also, I sprinkled drops of water on them and the water splotches didn't show up as much as they do with the ink pad ink.

I did end up adding color from the Oxide ink pads using blending tools and brushes, just to brighten them up. The sprays were still a huge time saver though. I don't think I had to touch them up all that much.

Once I added ink pad ink, the splotches of water showed up nicely.

I cut everything out that I needed and stacked them up so that I could just sit at my desk and listen to podcasts while I put them together. One of the ones I'm listening to right now is The Daily from the New York Times.

Here are the finished pieces (photographed in sunlight)

We are staying home and only getting groceries about once every 2 weeks. So far we are doing fine and just trying to keep busy at home. I hope you all are also doing well! 

I was just thinking what if someone links back to this post from somewhere a few years in the future and wonders what I'm talking about. Future people, this is the middle (?) of the Covid-19 Pandemic, and I'm so glad you made it through ok. Treasure your freedom to travel around, future people! Oh how I do hope we will get back to that! Stay well everyone!

Products Used:

Distress Oxide Sprays and Oxide pads - various colors

(experiment with what you have)

Impression Obsession Die365-W Good Wishes Word Block

Various colored cardstock for mats

Elizabeth Craft glitter dots silver/gold