Aged Mahogany Distress Ink and Coordinating Products by Tim Holtz for Ranger Industries

Are you in search of the richest, warmest, loveliest reddish brown color to use in your paper craft projects?

If so, you really need to take a look at the “Aged Mahogany” color curated by Tim Holtz for Ranger Industries.

Aged Mahogany is a deep burgundy-ish brown that’s reminiscent of the rich, lovely wood tones you might see in antique furnishings, a vintage library or an older wooden yacht (for example, the vintage sailboat my husband and I used to own had a gorgeous mahogany table top that wasn’t quite this color; that wood was a bit darker, yellower and not as red; but I am sure if you use your imagination, you can see where this idea is going.)

You can use Tim Holtz’s Aged Mahogany ink for stamping, spritzing, spraying and embellishing paper and other porous surfaces such as chipboard and fiber.

Ranger Industries makes a broad variety of mixed media art supplies available in this color, including the following:

Distress ink pads – full sized and mini (the mini comes in a kit, bundled with other colors)
Distress Ink reinker
Distress Oxide ink pad – full sized and mini (the mini comes in a kit bundled with other colors: Barn Door, Tattered Rose and Worn Lipstick)
Distress Oxide reinker
Embossing glaze
Woodless watercolor pencils
Distress Oxide spray
Distress Crayon
Aged Mahogany Distress Paint

Some of these products are sold separately and some of them are available in various bundles and kits.

Aged Mahogany Distress Ink

There are two different sizes of Aged Mahogany Distress Ink pads:

The felt surface of the full-sized ink pad measures 2″ x 2″ square; the entire ink pad, including its base, measures about 3” square.
The mini size ink pad measures one inch by one inch square, with the entire pad, including the plastic base, measuring about 1.36″ x 1.36″.

This water-based dye ink is acid-free and non-toxic.

Distress Ink is formulated to be water reactive, which means that you can achieve a variety of interesting distressing techniques simply by squirting, spritzing, spraying or dribbling water onto your inked or stamped projects (but I recommend experimenting with this on scrap paper before you drip water on expensive or irreplaceable paper, because this product doesn’t necessarily do what you might expect it to do.)

Cons: Downsides to Aged Mahogany Distress Ink

Distress Ink resists fading, but to the best of my knowledge, it is not archival safe. If you need an archival-safe ink, I recommend using a pigment ink such as Versafine Clair instead of this product.

You Can Use Aged Mahogany Distress Ink for Any of the Following Techniques:

Stamping
Distressing
Ink Blending
Stenciling (This ink is not as easy to use for stenciling as thicker media like Stencil Butter, so I recommend using it along with a repositionable adhesive like Pixie Spray to hold your stencil in place.)

Where to Buy Products from Tim Holtz’s Aged Mahogany Product Suite

Scrapbook.com stocks a broad variety of products in the Aged Mahogany color:

Aged Mahogany Alternatives to Consider:

Aged Mahogany is a deep reddish brown color that leans toward burgundy. If you’re looking for an alternative that is similar but not as red, try Tim Holtz’s Walnut Stain ink.

Walnut Stain is a similar dark brown color that is yellower and far less red in comparison. Walnut Stain is another color in the Distress Inks collection that Tim Holtz curated for Ranger Industries.

I think Walnut Stain lacks the same level of visual impact that Aged Mahogany has, and for that reason, I tend to use Aged Mahogany more frequently in my projects. However, I use both colors often.

I think Walnut Stain can sometimes be a better choice for situations where you’re making a project featuring other colors with yellowish undertones. Walnut Stain can also be a better choice in situations where you need to use a dark color, but you don’t want that dark color to hog the limelight. For example, if you want to stamp text that is dark and legible, but you want some other element on the page to be the most prominent element, that’s a good time to stamp with Walnut Stain ink.

Paper Craft Project Ideas Featuring Aged Mahogany Distress Ink:

Need some ideas for using Aged Mahogany Distress Ink in your paper craft projects? I invite you to consider the following suggestions:

Use Aged Mahogany Distress Ink for Inking Around the Edges of Your Papers and Embellishments to Give Them More Visual Impact

Iron County Fair 6x8 Pocket Page Scrapbooking Layout With Craft Supplies by Graphic 45 — Iron County Fair 6×8 Pocket Page Scrapbooking Layout With Craft Supplies by Graphic 45

One of the easiest ways to make your projects look more impressive: Ink around the edges of the elements on your pages, and also ink around the edges of your pages, themselves.

You can use any suitable ink colors to do your inking; it doesn’t have to be Aged Mahogany ink. But, Aged Mahogany happens to be one of those colors that works well to do this task, because it is a dark, rich color that contrasts well with lighter shades, and it harmonizes well with many other colors.

I invite you to check out the following pages for inspiration:

In this summer carnival-themed scrapbooking layout, I used Aged Mahogany ink to ink around the two label-shaped die cuts.

Stamp Card Sentiments, Journaling Spots or Other Text Using Aged Mahogany Distress Ink

Aged Mahogany is a rich, dark color that you can use for creating legible text on your scrapbooking, journaling and card making projects.

If you keep a planner, it’s also useful for creating page elements to add to your planner’s pages. I often use Aged Mahogany Distress Ink for stamping water trackers, weather trackers and other page elements to use in my planner. Here you can see a few examples:

And if you want to see examples of projects you can make using this idea, I invite you to check out the following pages:

Stamp Floral or Pictorial Images Using Aged Mahogany Distress Ink

Do you enjoy stamping various images and then coloring them in using markers?

I love doing this, but it is time consuming to do, so I personally try to avoid it. I prefer using silhouette style stamps that you can just ink, stamp and be done with, because it takes a lot of time to color the stamped images that aren’t silhouettes.

But if coloring is your thing, Aged Mahogany is one of those colors you would really benefit from owning.

This is because Aged Mahogany makes a really lovely alternative to black when you are stamping images that need to be colored in.

For example, let’s say you want to stamp and color a floral image that requires you to use two or more colors: green for the foliage and leaves, plus at least one other color, possibly more than one color, for the flowers.

In a situation like this, many stampers would select a black to use for the stamping.

Black is a fantastic, failsafe choice for this purpose – but I actually don’t use black for this very often.

Instead, I tend to use other dark colors – perhaps Aged Mahogany, Walnut Stain, Chipped Sapphire or Rustic Wilderness to accomplish this task.

I recommend choosing Aged Mahogany if you want to color your flowers in warm shades like red, persimmon or coral.

If your flowers will be purple or bluish colors, you might want to choose a different ink color than Aged Mahogany – perhaps a bluish-black or an outright blue would be a better choice, in that case. You might want to take a look at Chipped Sapphire as a good option to consider using with blues and purples.

Use Aged Mahogany to Bring Any of the Following Design Themes to Life:

Boards and Faux Wood Textures:

Got any faux wood textured stamps? This color is a no-brainer to use along with those.

Autumn:

Fall brings with it a stunning color palette of deep browns, oranges, golds, greens and grays. Aged Mahogany would fit right into any of your fall-themed greeting cards, scrapbooking layouts or junk journal pages.

Woodsy, Outdoorsy or Botanical Themes:

Aged Mahogany With Rustic Wilderness and Other Colors

If you and / or any of your people enjoy hiking in the mountains, trekking through the forests, camping, fishing, etc, Aged Mahogany will complement your outdoorsy projects beautifully. You can use this ink for stamping leaves, trees, tree rings, picturesque scenes, and / or woodland animals.

If you’d like to use the same botanical stamps I used in the images above, check out this Fancy Flowers stamp set by Gina K Designs. I also used stamps by Echo Park and Citrus Twist Kits, but those stamps have been discontinued and aren’t readily available any longer.

Dogs or Other Brown Critters:

Lots of different critters are brown. Try stamping any of them using Aged Mahogany to see how you like the effect.

Nautical Themes:

I used to live aboard sailboats, and I use this color to stamp the page elements on many of my nautical-themed projects.

A lot of people use a red, white and navy blue color palette for creating beach and sailing-themed projects — but I’m here to point out that you can substitute Aged Mahogany instead of the red for a fresher palette that is far less cliched.

Or, if you’re scrapbooking with pictures, you can just match your ink colors to the colors in your photos instead of forcing your colors to conform to an unrelated color palette. If Aged Mahogany happens to be a match, by all means, use it. In the case of my photos, Aged Mahogany coordinates beautifully with the wood tones in the vintage sailboat I used to live aboard — so I use it liberally in my scrapbook albums. But, of course, your situation will vary.

Romantic Themes:

If you need to make a wedding card or anniversary card for a special couple or person in your life, Aged Mahogany is a useful color to reach for. You can use it for designing romantic cards and projects that aren’t too froo-froo.

That said, you can also use it for stamping designs that are totally over-the-top froo-froo, if that’s what you want to do. Try combining it with shades of burgundy, rose, terra cotta, peach and / or blush colors, plus greens for any foliage or greenery if you’re stamping roses or flowers.

The Verdict: Aged Mahogany Is My Favorite Brown Ink Color for Stamping.

I Highly Recommend It to Other Crafters!

If you need reddish-brown ink and a coordinating suite of related products to use in your paper craft projects, Tim Holtz Aged Mahogany Distress Ink is an excellent choice to consider (unless you need your project to be archival safe, in which case, I think Versafine Clair ink would be better suited to your needs. But unfortunately, Versafine is a lot more expensive, and it doesn’t have the extensive color palette that Distress Ink offers you.)

Click HERE to Shop for Aged Mahogany Distress Ink and Other Coordinating Products at Scrapbook.com.

Thanks so much for checking out this review of Tim Holtz’s Aged Mahogany Distress Inks and coordinating mixed media art supplies. I appreciate your interest!

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By Amy Solovay

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About the Author

Amy Solovay is a real, live, human content creator and educator who holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in mathematics from Sweet Briar College; she has also earned a separate Associate of Arts degree in textile design from FIDM LA (The Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising, Los Angeles). She is NOT a robot and does not use artificial intelligence (AI) to write product reviews or articles for this website.

Amy learned to stamp and color as a small child, and she still enjoys stamping, collage art and mixed media art techniques all these years later.

I'm excited about this book, Delicate Crochet by Sharon Hernes Silverman! I am super proud of the 2 patterns I contributed to this pattern collection. I hope you'll check out the beaded necklace I designed for this book. Thanks for taking a look at it! — I’m excited about this book, Delicate Crochet by Sharon Hernes Silverman! ! I am super proud of the 2 patterns I contributed to this pattern collection. I hope you’ll check out the **beaded crochet necklace pattern I designed for this book.** Thanks for taking a look at it!

As an educator, Amy Solovay used to teach in-person college courses in trend forecasting, marketing and surface design at California Design College in Los Angeles. Nowadays she uses online platforms for sharing her knowledge about textiles, crafts, current color trends and current design trends.

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Over to You:

Have you used Aged Mahogany inks or any of the other Aged Mahogany Distress products? How do you like them? What did you make with them, and how did your projects turn out? Let’s talk about it in the c0mments area below.

This page was last updated on 4-9-2026.