Bleach-y Background

A while back, I spritzed a piece of dark green cardstock with bleach. This is the result. It's been sitting around for all that time and I finally put it on a card to get rid of it. I cut it down and matted it with black. The sentiment, from Gina K, was heat-embossed. I die-cut the leaves, dabbed them with Versamark ink and heat embossed them, too.

Thanks so much for stopping by, and I hope you'll come back and visit again soon!

Spritzed Bleach

One of our local grandsons had a summer school class last week on "aliens." Sounds pretty cool to me, but also beyond me! They had to invent a new planet and creatures for the planet and show their evolution and climate and all sorts of things. But, one really cool thing was the shirt he made. They had black t-shirts and they spritzed bleach on them. It looked like it had galaxies on it! So, I took a piece of black cardstock and spritzed it with bleach, and also a piece of olive-ish cardstock, to show him that I could do that with cardstock, too. And, of course, I could not just throw them out! So, here they are. I stamped a sentiment from My Favorite Things, matted it with black and popped it up before adding it to the bottom layer.

Thanks so much for stopping by, and I hope you'll come back and visit again soon!

An Old Technique - Bleach

I've watched a few Gina K videos while walking on my treadmill in the morning, and she recently did one using bleach. So, I thought I would do that. One of the colors of cardstock she used was her "Faded Brick," so I knew that it would turn yellow. (It's amazing the colors that various cardstocks turn when bleached!) The stamps I used (the flower sprig, the butterfly, and the sentiment) are all from Inkadinkado. I matted with black and placed it on a white cardfront.

I made the first card for the monthly swap in my stamping group. But, I liked it so much, I made four more after I mailed it out! Here are the others. I made another one from the Faded Brick cardstock, two from the green and one from the aqua. The colors don't come through so well in the photos, but they are quite pretty in real life.

Thanks so much for stopping by, and I hope you'll come back and visit again soon!

Bleach Technique

I watched a video of Gina K doing this technique and decided to give it a try. It's really quite simple. Ink up a background stamp and stamp on a piece of white or ivory cardstock. In both of my cards, I also spread another color of ink over the stamped image to color the white spots. Then stamp a line image over the background with Versamark and emboss with detail black embossing powder. Get yourself some bleach and "color" the image with it. It will remove the ink that you put on the card.

For this first card, the background is from Darcie's and the images are from Gina K. The sentiment is from Gina K, also.

The background on this second card is from Recollections. The stamps are from Gina K.

Thanks so much for stopping by, and I hope you'll come back and visit again soon!

Lovely as a Tree - #3

My next card using the Stampin' Up! set called "Lovely as a Tree." The trees are all one stamp. For this card, I used a dark green cardstock panel. I stamped the image with bleach. It matched kraft cardstock perfectly, so I matted with kraft and used a kraft cardbase. I mounted on foam squares. The sentiment is from Papertrey Ink. I stamped it with Versamark and embossed with clear embossing powder.

Thanks so much for stopping by, and I hope you'll come back and visit again soon!

Happy Anniversary, Harriet and Bruce!

This is for my friend, Harriet, and her husband, Bruce. Hope you have a wonderful day!

I stamped the heart wreath with Versamark and embossed with detail gold embossing powder. The stamp is from Stampin' Up! from a set called "Wreath of Roses" and is in my current stack of SU stamps to use. I used  a fine-pointed Fantastix stick and bleach to "color" the roses. I used a Copic marker to color the leaves. I matted with shiny gold and mounted on foam squares. The patterned paper is from an old SU matstack. The sentiment is from Papertrey Ink. I stamped it with Versamark and embossed with clear embossing powder.

Thanks so much for stopping by, and I hope you'll come back and visit again soon!

May Calendar Page

Time continues to zip by! Here is my calendar page for May.

I stamped the flowers from Hero Arts on blue cardstock. Then I used bleach and an aquapainter to "color" the flowers white. I colored the flower centers and leaves and grass with markers. The patterned paper is from a stack from Recollections. Happy May to you all!

The file for printing my calendar pages can be found through a link on the top of my blog. I'd love to hear from you if you download it.

Thanks so much for stopping by, and I hope you'll come back and visit again soon!

Sympathy Daisies

The mother of a friend passed away recently, and this is the card I sent her.

I stamped the daisies (from Inkadinkado) onto Baja Breeze cardstock (from Stampin' Up!). I "colored" the daisies with bleach to make them white and colored the leaves and flower centers with markers. I added Star Dust Stickles to the flower centers. I rounded the bottom corners on the image panel, the black matting, and the card front. The sentiment is from Hero Arts. I added a couple scored lines with my Scor-Pal.

Thanks so much for stopping by, and I hope you'll come back and visit again soon!

Repeat Impressions Stamp of the Week - Winter Tree

This week's Stamp of the Week from Repeat Impressions is Winter Tree, found on this page. It's available for 50% off through Sunday. Please visit the Repeat Impressions blog, The House That Stamps Built, for all the details. You will also find some ideas of what to do with this stamp there. Or, you can visit these Rock Stars' blogs:

Joy ~ Karen ~ Kendra ~ Maki ~ Miriam ~ Vicki

I stamped my image with Versafine Vintage Sepia ink on blue cardstock, then used bleach to "paint" the snow. The sentiment (from Repeat Impressions) is also stamped with Sepia ink. I added brown pearls to the corners. I embossed the brown matting with a Cuttlebug folder and then added another layer of blue. The card base is ivory.

We'd love to have your join our challenges. There are two open at any time - the WHAT IF? Wednesday challenge and the Designer's Choice Challenge. Both have great monthly prizes! You can find the details for both on the Repeat Impressions blog, also.

Thanks so much for stopping by, and I hope you'll come back and visit again soon!

Rose Wreath Anniversary

I was looking through the Repeat Impressions catalog, and when I was looking at the Rose Wreath stamp, I remembered a card I saw many years ago. So, this main image is a CASE of that card.


I stamped the wreath with Versamark on Old Olive cardstock and embossed with detail gold embossing powder. Then I took a Fantastix (like this, but with a pointed tip) and used bleach to "color" the roses. Then I colored the leaves with a Copic marker. I punched the corners on the lower edge with a Fiskars corner punch. The bottom layer is a shimmery gold paper. I scored the bottom of it with my Scor-Pal. The sentiment is also from Repeat Impressions, embossed with gold.


Thanks so much for stopping by, and I hope you'll come back and visit again soon!

Happy Birthday, Bruce!

This card is for the husband of a friend who just turned 60.  Happy Birthday, Bruce!  (And thanks for sending me the picture, Harriet. :) )

The card base is embossed with a Cuttlebug border embossing folder.  I used an olive green cardstock for the background, and misted it with bleach.  The owl is a dollar stamp from Michaels’s and the sentiment is from Stampendous.  They are stamped with Versamagic Vintage Sepia ink.  The image panel is mounted on Stampin’ Up! Chocolate Chip cardstock.

Sorry the infrequency of posts.  I’ve been trying to get ready for Christmas.  I just finished writing the Christmas letter last night, so I’ll check it over today and get it printed out.  The cards without letters already went out.  I took out all the Christmas decorations yesterday and got the boxes put away.  Now we just have to put the tree up (which we’ve had since last Saturday) and decorate.  The shopping is about half done.  I sure hope we can finish everything really soon so we can sit back and enjoy the season.  That’s my goal!

Thanks for stopping by today, and I hope you’ll come back and visit again soon!

Bleach Meets Stencil

Someone in my Yahoo! group mentioned using bleach in a spray bottle with stencils.  So, of course I had to give it a try!

I simply placed a Happy Birthday stencil over a piece of rose colored cardstock.  I filled a mini-mister bottle with bleach, and used it to “spritz” the bleach over the paper.  Voila!  I used my Scor-Pal to make a border on the un-bleached section.  I matted it on a piece of the same cardstock, and added a couple butterflies punched out of the same cardstock – with pearls for the bodies, of course!  (The punch is by Martha Stewart.)  The base of the card is Very Vanilla by Stampin’ Up!

Thanks so much for stopping by, and I hope you’ll come back and visit again soon!

Three More Bleach-Stamped Cards

Three cards – one picture. (Please click on the picture to see the cards larger.)

I liked the bleaching/scorching so well, I made three more cards using it! From left to right:
I used Stampin’ Up!’s Chocolate Chip cardstock to stamp on. I used the oak leaves from Lovely as a Tree and stamped with bleach. Then I heated it up with a heat gun. No scorching necessary for this one. I also dragged the edges in the bleach. For the second one, I used Glorious Green. For this one, I stamped with bleach and then heated it until it scorched. The leaves are punched with a Tonic punch. The border is punched with a Martha Stewart punch. The third one is stamped on Close to Cocoa and again scorched and matted on Creamy Caramel. The sentiment on all three is by Stampendous.

For the “wood-grained” paper, this is my method. I started with More Mustard cardstock. I dragged an ivory pigment ink pad over it. I used a “Wood” Fiskars texture plate and brayered Close to Cocoa ink on it. Then I embossed it with my BIGkick. Voila! One piece was enough for all three cards. I like that the texture plates are larger than the Cuttlebug folders.

Thanks so much for looking, and I hope you’ll come back and visit again soon!

Bleached and "Scorched!"

I have two cards to share with you today – both using the same stamp and the same technique.

I like using bleach, but I don’t do it very often. I was trying to come up with a card for my dad – not really all that easy! I thought using bleach on the oak tree from Stampin’ Up!’s set Lovely as a Tree might be a good idea. Using bleach on colored paper gives so many different results – you never know what color you will end up with! However, the two colors I chose – Close to Cocoa and Gable Green – both turned white. How boring! So, I remembered what happened a long time ago when I overheated the bleach – it sort of scorched. I used my heat gun on the bleached images until they started turning brown. I really like the results.

The first card is the one for my dad. The background paper is from a Die Cuts With a View Summer Matstack. I mounted my image on Close to Cocoa. The sentiment is from Stampendous. I stamped it with Versamark and Chocolate Chip ink an embossed it with clear embossing powder and mounted it on Close to Cocoa. The leaves are punched with a Tonic punch from Green Gable and sponged with Close to Cocoa. The edges of the image are also sponged with Close to Cocoa. The three leaves on the right are mounted with Pop Dot pieces.
For the second card, I matted the image with Creamy Caramel. The sentiment is from Papertrey Ink’s Mixed Messages, stamped with Close to Cocoa ink. The lines are scored with my Scor-Pal.

Thanks so much for looking, and I hope you’ll come back and visit again soon!