Sometimes it is handy to have some cards made up ahead of time! This technique is so easy and lends itself toward cards for differnt occasions. First you want to lay down some low-tack tape at the top and bottom of what will be your colour band to mask off the area. Distress this area with your favourite colour or colours of Distress Inks. In the samples below, you may not be able to see that other images have been stamped tone-on-tone on the colour band. This just adds a bit more interest to that area.

When you are ready to stamp your main image, you will need to pull off the top or the bottom piece of tape, depending on the direction your main stamp is going. In the cards above, the bottom piece of tape has been removed. Stamp your main image in black, and add your salutation in the bottom right-hand corner. These cards would be nice to make as a quick hostess gift. These are also great cards for mailing because there are no embellishments. If you had a number of cards started with the colour band and the image stamped, you could always add the salutation as needed.

We borrowed this card design from Jennifer McGuire's blog. A white panel has been covered with Blueprint Sketch Distress Ink. Then the hydrangea flower from Impression Obsession was white embossed on the panel. The blue colour was removed with water, and some of the Picked Raspberry Distress Ink was added to create the purple shade.

Because of the water reactive nature of Distress Inks, you'll be surprised how much ink you can remove with the water. The leaf has been white embossed and coloured in the same manner.