June 2021 Technique Squad Blog Hop

Welcome to the June 2021 Technique Squad Blog Hop! I’m excited to be a part of this collaboration with fellow Stampin' Up Demonstrators because it’s a chance to explore new techniques and have fun experimenting. This month, we’re painting with bleach!

Now that bleach is not as much of a commodity, there’s more leeway to use it for other fun things! A note about safety: cover your bleach when not in use, have enough ventilation in your room, and rinse carefully if you get some on your skin or eyes.

Bleach will react with cardstock to lighten it, and it’s fun to experiment and see what colors you get. When you’re making swatches, leave some time for the color change to fully develop because the final result may look a little different than it does initially. I’m using a standard household bleach that has sodium hypochlorite, and I really like the yellow I got from applying it to Basic Gray cardstock.

I used my Stamparatus to stamp the Prized Peony image—first with Basic Gray ink and then with Versamark ink. Then I added clear embossing powder and heat set it. The Versamark and embossing powder alone will darken the lines of the image, but stamping with Basic Gray ink first makes it pop even more. Using the Stamparatus makes this possible by allowing me to stamp twice in exactly the same place, but if you’re using an acrylic block, then skip the Basic Gray ink.

I then used a small paintbrush to paint bleach onto the areas I wanted to lighten. The embossed lines create a guide for painting and help contain the bleach to those areas.

Once I had my panel completed, I cut it out with a Stitched Rectangle die and finished off my card by adding some Pansy Petals Designer Series Paper, Gray Granite Shimmer Ribbon, and a label die cut borrowed from the Potted Succulents die set.