Autumn Leaves Bleaching & Pastels

One of my Too Cool Demo Team members, Connie Forrester, recently showed me a beautiful card she made using a Bleaching & Pastel Technique.  She had CASEd the card from France Martin at FrenchieStamps.com

Here is Connie's card:

Demo - connie gently falling bleach pastel

I loved the look of this technique so much, I had Connie demonstrate the technique at our Too Cool Demo Meeting last night.  It's so easy!

Bleaching & Pastels Technique

  • Create a bleach palette on a small dish with a few layers of folded paper towel.  The towel should be heavily saturated with bleach, but the bleach should not be pooling on the towel. 
  • Gently tap your rubber stamp on the bleach pad and stamp on card stock. 
  • Once the card stock is completely dry (I used a Heat Tool to speed up the drying process), apply your choice of Stampin' Pastels colors with a cotton ball. 
  • When finished coloring, use a towel to wipe the remaining pastel residue off your card stock.

FrenchieStamps.com has a wonderful video tutorial: Bleaching & Coloring With Pastels.

Bleaching TIPS:

  • Make sure your rubber is well "inked" with bleach for best results.
  • Connie randomly stamped a whole sheet of card stock, then cut it down to use on several cards (a One-Sheet Wonder).
  • If using Clear Mount Stamps, be extra careful that your bleach-inked stamp doesn't fall off your clear block and into your lap!  Eeeep!
  • Test your card stock to see how it reacts to the bleach.  You will get varied results depending on the temperature, humidity, and color of card stock.
  • Make sure your bleach is fresh.  If your bleach has been setting out for a while, it may not work as well.  Bleach from one of my old bottles had no effect on the card stock at all. 
  • Wash your rubber stamps with water and light dishwashing detergent immediately when done to prevent damage to your stamp.
  • If you are stamping off the edge of your card stock, be sure to wipe up your workspace before working on other parts of your card or you may accidently get bleach in unwanted places.

 I also created Two Cool cards of my own in the same design:

Demo - angie gently falling bleach pastel   Demo - angie french foliage bleach pastel

Demo - angie gently falling bleach pastel 2 The first card features the Gently Falling stamp set from the Holiday Mini. The second uses the French Foliage leaf set, which I liked a little better.  

I couldn't resist adding a little Shimmer Mist homemade spray to it for a little more shine!  Click to enlarge the closeup image to the right.

Complete Supplies List:

Purchase supplies for this card right now at my Online Store!

Angie

 

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