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Monday, February 20, 2012

Bleach - Its Not Just for Dirty Clothes

I have been playing around with different techniques that I had seen in years past.  This one is with bleach.  The idea is that you use bleach instead of ink to stamp your image.  I have seen some awesome cards done this way, but so far mine haven't been that good. 

First, you need to "create" a stamp pad with the bleach.  Take a container large enough to hold the stamp you will be using.  (I used a plastic container from Stampin Up stamps.)  Line it with paper towels or baby wipes and add some bleach.  You do not want too much bleach.....

Coyote Bleach Trials

Notice in the upper left corner, the image is not very defined.....too much bleach.  The lower left image has better definition.

Here is the simple get well card I made with one of the coyote bleach images:

Get Well "Oww-ch" Card
The next most important element is the paper.  All papers will act differently.  I tried about 10 different ones, and the coated ones (usually more expensive ones) did not work well.  I tried Core-dinations brand hoping that the second color would show thru, but it did not.  Really, the best paper to use from my experience is usually the thinner, cheaper paper.  Below you can see how different papers reacted.  The fun part is that you just never know what you will get!

Different Papers

Next element is the stamp.  You can see above that the more detailed stamps (Lottie Collage by Impression Obsession) can prove difficult to get the full image.  I did have success after a few tries, but it was harder.  I really like the blue one above.  It looks like a "negative" to me.  I haven't had time to make a card with it as yet.  When I do, I'll post it for you to see.

And finally.......some images that I was not at all happy with.  Just wanted to share the boo-boos too!

2 Giraffes-hard to see
2 Lions-blurry


I will be trying these images (both stamps by Beeswax) again when I have time.  I LOVE the images, just not sure that I love how they turned out with bleach!  LOL

Thanks for looking!
Sandy (Cheesy)

2 comments:

Donna Ellis said...

Thanks for sharing your bleach experiments, Sandy. Wonderful images (by the way LOL) - so glad to see you playing, enjoying and experimenting!

Shona Erlenborn said...

I did a card yesterday using bleach. And my last surf card uses bleach. I like to emboss the image and then "paint the bleach on with a water pen. TFS your cards - I love the coyote howling ouch!