Variations of Bleached Tulips

The Group of Cardmakers are trying the technique of bleaching on cards.  I don't mind using actual bleach but if you don't like using bleach, you can try using water (though I found it much less effective).  Since spring is just around the corner, I decided to use three different tulip stamps.

The card I am most happy with is this one:

I created a smooshed background with various red, orange, and yellow Distress inks on watercolour paper.  I used a bit too much water and it all blended into this dark peach colour.  I put it in my MISTI and stamped the tulip in Versafine black and heat embossed with clear powder.  I then used bleach and a waterbrush to lift the background colour from the tulip.  I also splattered a bit of bleach on the panel.  I chose to leave the tulip white and not add any colour to it. Trimmed it with a stitched rectangle die and added a sentiment.

Next up:

Another smooshed background - this one on white cs with yellow and orange Distress inks.  I then stamped with Distress Walnut Stain and heat embossed with clear powder.  I used bleach and a waterbrush to lift the background colour from all of the flower heads.  The embossing powder had not stuck to all of the image so I lost a bit of my stamping when I did the bleaching.  So I put it back in the MISTI (luckily I hadn't taken the stamp out) but the restamping ended up slightly off set so there's a bit of an out of focus look to the bottom of the image.

This time I added some colour - I used a bit of Distress Candied Apple to add colour to the bottoms of each flower head.  It came out more pink than red, likely because of the bleach residue on the cs.  

I trimmed the panel, popped it up on fun foam on a text embossed background, and added a sentiment.

I'm adding this card to the following challenges that all want "spring": Try It on Tuesday, Stamping Sensations, and Allsorts. 

   

The third one uses a collage style stamp:

I used various red and orange Distress inks on white cs for this smooshed background.  Again too much water and I ended up with a mostly pink background.  Like the second card, I stamped with Distress Walnut Stain and heat embossed in clear, and again, not all of it ended up embossed.  So I found when I bleached the flower heads, some of the brown lines bleached out and in other spots I ended up with pink bits mixed in with the brown embossed details of the flower heads.  I liked the effect so didn't add any additional colour in the petals, but did use a brown coloured pencil to add back some of the outlines of the petals.

I trimmed the panel, added it to the card base, stamped a sentiment that I cut into two sections and angled on the card.

Final impressions:

• I prefer using watercolour paper to regular cardstock as I found I got better bleaching.
• Heat embossing creates a dam to help you keep the bleach where you want it.  
• If you stamp with a water-based ink and don't manage to heat emboss it thoroughly, the bleach will lift it.  Therefore I will avoid Distress inks for my stamping as they are not as effective for heat embossing.  The pigment ink I used for the first card was much better. 

Brushos (or other powders that work with water) are also effective.  Here's a card I made several years ago using Brushos for the background.  See this post for details.

 

Head over to the Group of Cardmakers blog to see how the rest of the group used bleach.

Supplies for card 1:
Stamps - AALL & Create tulip, unknown sentiment
Ink - Versafine Onyx Black, various red, orange, and yellow Distress inks
Paper - watercolour paper, off white cs
Size - A2
Accessories - clear embossing powder, bleach, Lil Inker's stitched rectangle die, Spellbinders oval die

Supplies for card 2:
Stamps - Stamplorations Framed Tulips, Rosie's Roadshow sentiment
Ink - Distress Walnut Stain, various yellow and orange Distress inks, Distress Candied Apple
Paper - white cs
Size - A2
Accessories - bleach, clear embossing powder, text embossing folder, fun foam

Supplies for card 3:
Stamps - Darkroom Door tulip collage, Tim Holtz sentiment
Ink - Distress Walnut Stain, various red and orange Distress inks
Paper - white cs
Size - A2
Accessories - bleach, clear embossing powder, brown coloured pencil

Heat Embossed Reindeer Panel and Bleached Iris

For the ABC Christmas Challenge "E is for Embossing", I went with heat embossing.

I created a background by spraying some silver spray on cs.  When dry, I stamped the image panel in black and heat embossed with clear embossing powder.  I bordered with silver glitter cs and mounted on a silver shimmer card base.

For the Penny Black Saturday Challenge, I used a lovely Penny Black iris stamp I've had for ages.  It's also for Seize the Birthday "Spring Floral" - the early small irises are starting to bloom in my garden!

 

 

I created a blue background by sprinkling with various blue Brushos and spritzing with water.  I let it air dry.  Then stamped the irises and used a small paint brush and bleach to lift the Brushos colour from inside the iris image.  Then stamped a few bits of random script around the irises and added a sentiment die cut with an oval and lightly sponged with blue ink.  Bordered with black cs.

 

 

 

Supplies for card 1:
Stamps - Tim Holtz Stampers Anonymous reindeer panel
Ink - Versafine Clair Nocturne
Paper - white cs, silver glitter cs, silver shimmer cs
Size - A2
Accessories - silver spray, clear embossing powder

Supplies for card 2:
Stamps - Penny Black irises, Stampington & Co script, A Muse sentiment
Ink - Distress Tumbled Glass, Versafine Clair Twilight and Nocturne
Paper - black and white cs
Size - A2
Accessories - bleach, blue Brushos, Spellbinders oval die

Resisting Snowflakes and a Bleached Bird

52 Christmas Card Throwdown wants a card using the Emboss Resist Technique.  I used a snowflake stencil to create my resist:

I pressed my Versamark pad through the snowflake stencil and then heat embossed the snowflakes with clear ep.  I then sponged various blue Distress inks over the panel and when finished, wiped off the snowflakes with a damp cloth.

I cut it with a tag die thinking I'd enter it in Cardz 4 Guyz "Tag" challenge but just missed the deadline.  Because I wanted to be sure it looked masculine, I added a metal token (attaching it with a brad) and a dark silver die cut sentiment.  The tag is added to an embossed background panel.

I'm also cutting it fine to enter The Paper Players "Birds" challenge but at least I'm in time for this one.  Here's my card:

I created the green Brusho background by sprinkling the Brusho powders on watercolour paper and then spritzing with water. When dry, I stamped the image and heat set it. Then I used bleach and a paint brush to lift the green colour from the bird.

I stamped the sentiment that came with the image across the bottom and a Happy Retirement sentiment up at the top.

I added gold gel pen to all the tiny berries in the image and bordered with a matching gold cs. I found a blue grey cs that matched the colour of the bird (the bleach never seems to take enough colour out to go right back to white) and used it for the card base. The panel is popped up on fun foam.

52 Christmas Card Throwdown

The Paper Players

Supplies for card 1:
Ink - Distress Broken China, Stormy Skies, Faded Jeans; Versamark
Paper - white cs, dark silver cs
Size - A2
Accessories - Paper Roses snowflake stencil, clear embossing powder, Cuttlebug embossing folder, Tim Holtz token, Dee's Distinctively "Merry" die, stitched tag die, dark silver brad

Supplies for card 2:
Stamps - Carabelle "Dream Wings", SU "Happy Retirement"
Ink - Versafine Clair Nocturne
Paper - watercolour paper, gold shimmer cs, pale blue grey cs
Size - A2
Accessories - two shades of green Brushos, gold gel pen, bleach, fun foam

Duck Egg and Plum

Less is More has a colour challenge going on right now:

 

I went with some ink blending to use the challenge colours.

 

I sponged Distress inks, getting the colours to overlap. Then I put my stamp and background in the MISTI and stamped the poppy. Leaving everything in the MISTI, I used a brush and bleach to remove the colour from the poppy, and then restamped to keep the outline distinct.

I framed it with a stitched window die, and added a sentiment and some dark irridescent gemstones.

I've really enjoyed using the bleach technique lately.

Supplies:

Stamps - SU Simply Sketched poppy, Savvy Stamps sentiment

Ink - Memento Tuxedo Black, Distress Faded Jeans, Seedless Preserves, and Broken China

Paper - white cs

Size - A2

Accessories - Die-namics peek-a-boo window, Lil Inker stitched rectangle die, dark iridescent gemstones, bleach

Eat Sleep Craft Repeat 2019

My wonderful and talented friend, Loll Thompson, found a perfect house near Vancouver for a bunch of us to get together for a craft retreat.   Loll, Christine, Bonnie, Darnell, Trina, Nancy and myself were there for a week.  We were joined for two nights by Linda, Colleen and Nancy's daughter, Jeani.  And Maureen (Scrappymo/Rudolf days) came for lunch on one of the days.  It was a fabulous social time, a great break from normal routine, and we did a ton of crafting.

 Left to right: Christine, Trina, me, Darnell, Colleen, Loll, Bonnie, Nancy, Linda

Each of us led a couple of techniques.  One that I chose to lead was bleaching out an image after stamping it on backgrounds created with powdered inks or Distress inks.

I sponged three shades of blue Distress inks onto smooth white cs.  Then stamped and heat embossed the blossom image.  Using bleach and a cheap paintbrush, I lifted the background colour from within the image.

Unlike the card in this post where I added some colour to the bleached image, I really liked this one left as it ended up after the bleaching.  I bordered it with black, heat embossed a white sentiment on a strip of black, and popped the panel up on fun foam.

It was a wonderful week.  I'll have more cards from the retreat to show you in the future, but meanwhile why not hop over to all the other participants' blogs:

Loll

Christine

Nancy

Darnell (aka Dolly)

Trina

Bonnie

Colleen
Linda

Supplies:

Stamps - Penny Black

Ink - Distress Tumbled Glass, Salty Ocean, and Faded Jeans; Versafine Onyx Black, Versamark

Paper - white and black cs

Size - A2

Accessories - clear and white embossing powder, fun foam, bleach

Brand New Dogwood Stamp

The provincial flower for my province in Canada is the dogwood and when I saw a lovely dogwood stamp on Technique Junkie's website, I decided I had to have it.  Because it's new, it's perfect for this month's Flower Challenge:

I wanted to use a technique that I'll be leading when I get together with a group of lovely crafty women in May.  This card will be one of my samples.

I sprinkled a couple of colours of Brushos onto watercolour paper, spritzed with water, let the colours run and mingle, and then set it aside to air dry.

Next I stamped my image in archival ink.  I lifted the colour from the flowers with bleach, and then went back in with watercolour paints to add touches of colour to the flowers.  I was trying to get them close to this image of a dogwood flower, with the pink bits around the dip in the petals and the greenish centres:

I wanted to add more interest to my panel so did some stenciling with Picked Raspberry and some grey text stamping.  The panel is popped up on fun foam.

It's snowing here again - so kind of ironic to be making a card that says "happy spring"!  I think I'll go back to Christmas cards!

Supplies:

Stamps - Technique Junkies dogwood, Stampendous sentiment, unknown script stamp

Ink - Archival Jet Black, Memento London Fog, Distress Picked Raspberry

Paper - watercolour paper, white cs

Size - A2

Accessories - pink and orange Brushos, TCW stencil, bleach, watercolour paints