When you think of the work distressed, you usually think of someone who is stressed, or even of old furniture. When we talk about distressed scrapbook pages, we are talking about an art of making a card or a scrapbook page look "antiqued."

The easiest way to distress your card stock for your page, is to wad it up good, then spread it out again. Take that one step further, and you can brush ink across the paper's ridges and that highlights the wrinkles in your paper. Another scrapping technique is to spray the card stock lightly with water before wadding it up. The water helps you to wad the paper up tight and that will help you get many more wrinkles. Another good distressed look is achieved by brushing two or more inks on your paper while it is still wet. This adds depth to the distressing of the paper. Add a small tear here and there and that is another way to add the antique look that is so unique and a great way to add an old look to your scrapbook pages.

When you stamp the wrinkled card stock with rubber stamps it adds more dimension to the image as parts of it are raised. Try this trick ... take a heart, a star or another shape you have hand torn, and after you wad it up and flatten, stamp the shape. You will emphasize the wrinkles, and the image will be dark in some areas and lighter in others. It is a different effect.

Sandpaper is a great tool that is very handy to the scrapbooker. I know it sounds crazy, as woodworkers use sandpaper to smooth out their work. Scrapbookers use it to distress theirs. Sanding in your scrapbooking is used to make the smooth surfaces rough and to sand off embossed colored designs so you can reveal the white under coated paper. Another fun thing to so is to sand to add a  Linen texture  to vellum. Simply sand along the edge of the vellum then brush is with white Brilliance ink as it dries on vellum, and you have the faux linen look.

I like to sand other things besides just paper. When you sand a button before adding it to a scrapbook page, it gives an old look and feel. I also like to sand stickers, metal,chipboard, many other embellishments.

If you feel daring, you can even sand your photos. When you sand the edges or even just the corners of your photos, you can create a bit of an edgy border as you are removing a bit of the color from the very edge only. Another fun thing you can do with your photo, is to take a black and white photo and color copy on a light color of text weight paper. Sand this LIGHTLY with fine sandpaper in vertical and horizontal strokes. Sand the edges a bit more. This makes your photo look old, but you are not ruining your original photo.

You can also use a scrapbooking technique to distress your page called "scratching and scraping." This adds the shabby chic look to a page or a card. Pick up your craft knife and scrape a bit off of pre-embossed paper and roughen up the edges of some openings. Scrape the folds of a photo and really lay into it with some scratch art on your stamped glossy images. It sounds intimidating, but you will be amazed ate the effects you can create.

With your craft knife, try scraping a border around one of your photos, making sure you use a ruler to keep your line straight. It will make a fun and distressed border around your picture.

There are many other things you can do to your paper to give that worn out look. Try to use a paper crimper and go over and over the piece of paper you are distressing. Wire brushing is also an effective method. Try steel wool or sponging your paper. The more distress you add, the more style!