Blur Controls

Is there a way to blur the controls. Think like the effect where someone’s face is blurred out to hide their identity.
I am sure I’ve seen apps before where a background was burred out like there was frosted glass over it.

Any suggestions for how to do this?

Ok, I’ve found the MobileRectangle.SetEffect
I’m playing with the options, but this looks like it will do what I want.
However…

I’m putting this over controls in a MobileTableCustomCell
I have a setter in this cell to initialize all the GUI elements (works well). The last thing I do in this function is set the effect.
The effect does not and will not show until I tap on the cell. I can’t figure a way around this.

HELP!