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February reminds us that the crisp winter breeze remains, but underneath the cool white Earth the warmth of love is in the air! Valentine’s Day sparks our emotions and passion, and translating that into our scrapbooking can be effortless and fun!
There’s no doubt that once you experience the versatility and ease that bleach and ink afford you’ll be head over heals in love with this technique. Let’s point Cupid’s arrow to our basic supplies and get started!
Working with bleach requires a small amount of prep work, so make sure your work surface is protected as well as your clothing. A plastic plate, sponge brush, acrylic brush and bleaching pen by Clorox are all you will need for the bleaching process. Gather up your favorite dye-based inkpads and you are ready to go!
Creating a background is a great way to start learning how easy bleaching is. Always test your cardstock with a small amount of bleach brushed on to see if the color will remove. Some cardstock is manufactured in a way that doesn’t allow for bleaching. Squeeze a nice amount of the bleach onto a plastic plate. The bleach will be thick. Gather you favorite stamp and using the foam brush apply to the stamp. Stamp your paper and continue until you are happy with the look. You should start seeing the bleach work almost immediately. Slowly the color will be removed. Different colored cardstock will look differently and sometimes the shades are beautifully displayed ready for those photos! In the layout "Dance Little Girl" random stamping was applied to both backgrounds, giving the page an elegant look perfect for these charming photos.
Letter stamps take on a whole new meaning when creating bleached titles. In the layout "Skiing," bleach was brushed on the stamps and applied. The more bleach you apply, the lighter results you will have. An embossing gun can be used to speed up the drying process.
In the layout "The Dream," the snowman was stamped in dark blue on gold cardstock; a small acrylic brush and bleach were used to remove the color in certain areas. Once dried, then color can be added with paints, colored pencils or markers.
Once you have mastered the techniques above, you are ready to move on to a more challenging way to use bleach. Apply dye-based ink to white cardstock. A variety of methods are sponging, stippling or simply direct to paper. Once the paper is covered, sponge bleach onto a stamp and apply to paper. Watch the colored areas fade to white, revealing your stamped image.
If you are looking for a technique to put your heart into, then bleach and ink is a perfect match! You’ll just fall in love with all the beautiful scrapbook pages you can easily create and share with the ones you love.
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