Painting with Bleach (by Judith)

Hello everyone, I am back with another project to share with you showcasing the stamps that we brought to you on last month's TV shows on Hochanda. I wanted to revisit a technique that I love to use in conjunction with Distress Inks, painting with bleach, it works so well, and these stamps are a great way to show off the technique. I made a larger project a while back using the very same technique, and I will share a couple of photos of that project with you at the end of my post.

I started my project by creating two panels, one large and one smaller, shading them with Distress Inks in a rainbow panel. I started in the middle with yellow, and worked out using orange and red on one side, green, blue and purple on the other side. I made sure to blend the colours smoothly, going back over the joins where necessary with the previous colour. I matted both layers with black card, and turned them so that they were facing the opposite way to each other when I put them together.

I coloured some spare card with Distress Inks, and stamped a couple of flowers and a butterfly from the Butterfly Daisy Collage stamp set onto the card using Archival Jet Black ink. I painted parts of the image with neat household bleach and a fine brush. IMPORTANT: do make sure that you are working in a well ventilated area when you do this. I cut the images out, and stamped a foliage image onto the smaller background a couple of times using black ink. I curled the petals of the flowers and butterfly slightly before adhering them to the background. I added a sentiment from the Loving Sentiments stamp set.

As you will see, I was very much inspired by my previous project! This flag book uses lots of our other stamps, but incorporates stamps from other companies too. Lesley is a huge advocate of mixing and matching our stamp sets together, but encourages you to use your Chocolate Baroque stamps with your other stamps as well.

I used the same techniques throughout this book, Distress Ink backgrounds, stamping with Archival Ink, and painting with bleach. I have added a bit of stencilling here and there for added texture, and a few small embellishments. I hope that you will give this technique a try, it's a lot of fun, and depending on the colour of ink that you use, the results vary.

I will be back later in the month with more inspiration, thanks for stopping by,

Judith xx