Bleach Stamping is Not For Sissys

At 9 am this morning I went into the laundry room to start on The Hill. I saw The Bleach. I remembered the bleach stamping technique Bernie Berlin uses in her book, Artist Trading Card Workshop. I gathered up supplies and went outside. I lugged all my stamps downstairs, black cardstock, gloves, bleach etc. The excitement!! Guess what? It DIDN'T WORK!! I used up all the black paper I had! What the hell?? Went back upstairs found more solid dark cardstock in greens browns blues. Some of them worked and some didn't. It was very hot out and the bleach kept evaporating. No breeze, started getting a headache. Moral of the story? The cheaper and poorer the quality of cardstock, the better. Some has a waxy coating that will not bleach.


When it did work, I loved it! I hope the bleach doesn't damage my stamps. I'm too lazy to wash them off. You have to use a lot of bleach on the stamp, more than the amount of ink you would use. Here is the pile of finished papers. Pay no attention to the pile of laundry on the table:
And some gratuitous closeups:


I just love Bernie's book. I have learned a lot from it and had the best time experimenting. I just got some Never Dull and can't wait to try that technique too. Backgrounds are my favorite part of the process. Now the next step is to embellish these papers with ink, paint, stencils, spray webbing. Or leave them plain. Try it OUTSIDE!! xoSusan