Crackle Medium Tutorial

I wanted to make a tutorial on using crackle medium for my buddy, Julie and I thought I would share it with you as well. Crackle medium is my latest paper crush. I've used it before on wood projects and when I saw Tim Holtz's blog using it this month the wheels began turning! I have a hard time finding the latest and greatest products around here, so I'm improvising. The Tim Holtz crackle is colored and the stuff I am using is clear. This is the (almost) finished product. I have to add some stitching and final touches, but the crackling is done anyway. I just am in love with the texture you can get with this. Here is what I used: First I added the die cut to the cream colored tag. I will use the green shadow of the tag later. Then I used the crackle medium. I just painted it all over the surface. You need to use a thick coat. If you do it too thin it will not crackle. You can see that it is pretty thick and not that even. That is ok. This is the scary part. Your paper will shrivel up as it dries. It will look like a mess and you will be afraid you ruined it. It's gonna be ok though. Just chill. Don't mess with your paper while it is drying. Don't look and see if it is crackled. Just leave it alone! Hands off! When it is really, really , REALLY dry you can smooth it out. and glue it to the backing paper. In this case, I used the shadow feature on the Doodlecharms cartridge as a backing. I like to use a glue stick for this, because that ensures that you get glue everywhere. A little of the crackling may crack off as you do this step, but it's ok. After it is glued on tight I like to DAB some ink on it. I did this with Distress Ink (vintage photo). I dabbed the ink onto a makeup sponge and onto my project. This enhances the crackle design and make your project look aged. Your project may need a little flattening. If it does you can put your dictionary on it and leave it for a few hours. I hope this tutorial has helped you out and if you have any questions you can feel free to ask!