Bleach Technique

Hello, Crafters.

On 24th-25th February 2017, I shall be on the Stampin' Up! Stand at the Make It Show, in Farnborough. There will be five of of us, and we will take it in turns in running the Make-n-Take table, and also the Demonstration table. 

I have chosen to demo the Beautiful You Stamp Set as well as our new Watercolour Pencils. I'm currently working on as many different ideas for the stamp set, as possible. Yesterday I was experimenting with the bleach technique which never fails to fascinate me. I decided to use each of the three images and chose three similar colours - Rich Razzleberry, Elegant Eggplant and Perfect Plum.

Please remember bleach is very toxic, and should only be used in a well-ventilated room. Do not breathe in the fumes

I took six pieces of cardstock, two in each colour, and wiped one piece of each colour with my Embossing Buddy. I inked each stamp with Versamark in turn, and stamped each on one of the pieces of cardstock. Then I sprinkled the images with black embossing powder and heat set them. 

I repeated the process using White Embossing Powder, making sure I kept the image on the same colour cardstock as the black embossed images. Please note we no longer sell black embossing powder. 

The two ways I know of painting with bleach are either neat or diluted. For the black embossed images I used an Aqua Painter that I keep just for bleaching and filled it with tap water. I also put a small amount of bleach in a ceramic dish. 

I squeezed the brush gently to make sure the brush head was wet, dipped it in the bleach and painted inside the black embossed lines. The bleach did the rest of the work. 

I finished all three images and put them to one side to dry while I worked on the white embossed images. I washed the brush head I had just been using to make sure I didn't leave any bleach on it. 

I took my other Aqua Painter that I save for bleaching and used the bleach neat. I don't like bleaching like this because diluted bleach works brilliantly and therefore renders this method redundant.

For today's card I chose to use the elegant lady on the Perfect Plum Cardstock (CS). The colour of the bleached image was very close to Blushing Bride. I took one of our doilies and went over it with a Sponge Brayer and Blushing Bride Ink. I put it to one side to dry while I die cut the image using the Stitched Shapes Oval Die no 4.

I took a piece of Perfect Plum CS and stamped the Happy Birthday sentiment from the Confetti Celebration Stamp Set in Versamark and heat emnbossed using black embossing powder.

I used my Aqua Painter with water to bleach inside the letters. The bleaching this time created a bluey colour as opposed to the Blushing Bride of the lady!

I don't know why the two came up differently. I can only imagine the the pieces of cardstock were from different batches but this is one of the beauties of this technique.......you never know what colour you're going to get!

My card base is Perfect Plum CS with a layer of Blushing Bride CS and a top layer of Perfect Plum CS. I dry embossed the top layer using the Falling Petals Embossing Folder. 

I adhered the top two layers together and adhered a piece of Blushing Bride 3/8" Stitched Satin Ribbon around the lower part and adhered the two ends at the back using SNAIL.  

I die cut the sentiment using the Stitched Shapes Oval Die no 2 and adhered it over the ribbon with Dimensionals on the top and bottom but not at the ends. 

Then I used Tombow to adhere the doily in position and used Dimensionals to put the image in the centre of the doily.

For the Blushing Bride CS card insert, I heat embossed a partial image of the lady with black embossing powder and bleached the image. I gave it a little while to dry before I adhered it to the card base. 


The last photograph shows the white embossed image, which has bleached the same as the black image but looks difference because it has a white outline as opposed to black - without a doubt the black is by far the best! Do you agree?

If you're in the Farnborough area on 24-25.02.17, or you're looking for a great day out, come to see the Make It Show, and visit the Stampin' Up! stand. Come and say hello. It'd be lovely to meet you!

Until tomorrow, happy crafting.

JanB.