Heart 2 Heart Challenge - distress

Heart 2 Heart Challenge wants to see how we use distress.  Distress, em......I have not forgotten how to distress.  At least I often distress the edges of the paper to define the outlines.  What other things do I do to distress my artwork? 

I like distress but not do it often.  This challenge presents an opportunity for me to review some of the techniques.  I have used the chocolate ink pad and a sponge dauber to distress all the edges of the pieces and the sanding kit to dry emboss the middle portion.  The major distressing part is the flower, of course. I tore the circles then use the edge distresser to distress the edges of the circles.  Then I used a damp cloth to blot on the circles to soften them up.  Before they were dry, I crumbled them up then opened them back into circles.  After they were dry, I used the sponge dauber and chocolate ink pad to distress the edges and also rub on their surface.  The leaves were prepared in the same way, except that I did not crumble them up.  Instead I just folded them in half to create the veins.

The card turned out pretty nice:

A Closer look at the flower:

I have a confession to make.  The yellow circle was torn accidentally when I was distressing its edge, and so was one of the leaves.  At first I wanted to replace them with an intact one, but upon second thought I think they enhanced the distress look so I just leave them in place.  Shhhh........

Materials used:
1.  Dotty for You paper packet
2.  Grey Wool cardstock
3.  Colonial White cardstock
4.  Waxy Flax - colonial white
5.  Bling Assortment
6.  Bulk Ribbon - Color-Ready Seam Binding Ribbon
7.  Card word puzzle stamp set
8.  Chocolate Exclusive Inks Stamp Pad
9.  Smoothie Exclusive Inks Stamp Pad