Happy Spring! Today I am back with Micaceous Iron Oxide from a project I filmed back in fall 2022- better late than never! I love Micaceous Iron Oxide! it’s got a little bit of shimmer to it and it’s kind of a dark graphite/dark charcoal gray color. For one of the projects I wanted to make, I liked the idea of this paint, but I wanted a little more of a brown rather than gray. This video was filmed while I was playing around with ideas on coloring and using the Micaceous Iron Oxide.
I decided to use Distress Oxide sprays to color the Micaceous Iron Oxide paint. I used two squirts of the Ground Espresso and a couple of squirts of Vintage Photo in the first example. I’ve also used some of the other colors like Walnut Stain. Sometimes for extra shimmer, I’ve added glimmer sprays or mica sprays but those are not necessary. In one of the samples I used just one squirt of Distress mica spray in Decayed.
The Distress Oxides thin the paint a little and I just spread the mixture onto cardstock to emboss once the paint mixture has dried. In this example I just used cheap cardstock, but for the second example you might want to try one of the Tim Holtz Distress line of cardstocks like the heavyweight or watercolor because it won’t pill/shred/rip as easily.
I take a second piece of cardstock and color the background with whatever’s left. Hopefully there’s enough left that you’ll get the full coverage, but it really doesn’t have to be.
Immediately you’re going to take a stencil, either a store bought one or you could also use a Yupo paper stencil you’ve cut yourself, and place it over the still wet paint. Then use a damp rag or wipe or paper towel to wipe away the paint through the stencil. You can wipe as much or as little as you like, but the paint mixture will stain the cardstock. If the stencil is super detailed, then you can use a gloved finger (or possibly a damp scrub brush or foam) to try to get into the corners to remove more of the paint. But detailed designs will be a little harder to work with to get the paint out of all those details. You will be left with a cool textural tone on tone look. You can always come back in after the paint has dried with the stencil covering the cardstock again and spray through the stencil or use applicators with ink or crayons etc. if you want a different look.
Micaceous Iron with Distress Oxide Sprays Tone on Tone Spider WebWhen the first piece of cardstock is dry I embossed it with an embossing folder and then played around with coloring over the embossing with Distress Oxide ink pads and Distress crayons. Both worked well and looked great on top of the (now brown) Micaceous Iron Oxide paint.
At the end of the video I showed the regular Micaceous Iron Oxide against samples that I had colored with the brown Distress Oxide sprays. I also showed an example where I painted a piece of cardstock with Micaceous Iron Oxide, and didn’t wait for the paint to dry. I just went over the top first. I used just plain Distress spray stain in Walnut Stain, and then I spritzed that with Frayed Burlap Distress Oxide spray. Frayed Burlap in Distressed Oxide oxidizes a funky blue color, so I got cool blue spots on top of the brownish Micaceous Iron Oxide. You could play around with just spraying the Distress Oxide over the top rather than mixing it in. You might get some surprises from the wet Distress Oxides.
The last sample I showed was another embossed piece, but I used a mixture of blues over the brown Micaceous Iron Oxide. I used Bundled Sage, Salvaged Patina, and just a hint of Mermaid Lagoon Distress Oxide pads and then just a hint of Sizzix Luster wax in the copper color. It doesn’t have to be the luster wax if you’ve got pearl crayons or the wax from Tim Holt, any kind of metallic/shimmery stuff will work.
Hope you like this idea! Enjoy!
