2016 #23 Bleached Backgrounds {by Chris Cresswell}

2016 Topic 23: Bleach Techniques

Hi everyone, Chris Cresswell here joining you this evening with a post about using bleach with different media. I love making backgrounds in my art journals and creating quick masterboards when I have a lot of cards to make. From time to time I like to use bleach (cheap), water (cheaper) or alcohol inks to create ‘ghost’ and ‘marbling’ effects but I usually use them with waterbased products. This time I wanted to see how I could use it with Fresco Acrylics to try to obtain a similar effect. It’s all serendipity. Then I played further with the Infusions and Neocolours to compare my results. The goal was to create a variety of Christmas cards and tags to sell at a local village Christmas Fair. 

Having selected various colours of Fresco Chalk paints, I mixed each one with water and bottled them to create acrylic paint sprays. I knew that if I wanted them to work in a similar way to dye-based inks and paints, I was going to need a watery consistency. I also diluted regular bleach with water and put this in a spray bottle – clearly marked ‘bleach’! I started by spraying two or three paint colours across a sheet of PaperArtsy 240gms card (it’s amazing just how much media this card can withstand without buckling!) allowing the colours to blend and drip. Now the trick is to spray the bleach lightly across the card while it is still pretty wet as Fresco Chalks are permanent when dry. I used a cardboard box to spray into, otherwise it goes everywhere. I also had the kitchen door and window open while spraying the bleach. This photo was taken after the first spray. I used Tango, London Bus and a little Bougainvillea here.

I then dried it with a heat gun to a point where it was still a little damp. I lightly sprayed the diluted bleach again, hoping to get a ‘speckled’ or ‘mottled’ effect, but in actual fact it seemed to blend the colours more smoothly. It removed the harsh edges of paint which had been previously pushed back by the bleach, so the result was less crater-like as happens with alcohol inks. Interesting. I played around with various colour combinations; my favourite being: China, Lavender and Eggplant. 

A faux-bleach effect technique I like to use is to clear emboss an image and once paint has been applied and dried, iron it off to remove the embossed ink and leave the primary surface exposed. I’ve explained this in more detail on my blog. Here I have stamped and clear embossed on unpainted 240gms card using JoFy’s mini snowflake stamp (JM07). Once dry, I repeated the spray paint/bleach process described above and when this was dry, I placed the card between two pieces of copy paper and ironed off the embossed ink. Whether the iron was too hot, or it was the effect of the iron on the bleach, I’m not sure, but as you can see it left some yellow-cream patches across the card which I really like. I felt this helped to create a wintery effect.

JM07

Now it was just a case of stamping across the bleached backgrounds to create the masterboards. I used a variety of JoFy stamps for this taken from various collections (JM07, JOFY06, JOFY13, JOFY08) and complementary Archival inks (Ranger: Violet, Forget-Me-Not).

JOFY06

JOFY13

JOFY08

I tried the same technique with the Infusions, using them in different combinations. I knew these would work well as they are water-based and I’ve played around before with bleach and Brushos. I did need to add a lot of water to achieve a painted background, gently pushing a paintbrush around the watery colours to help them mix and merge. My favourite mix was Golden Sands and Are You Cerise. Once dry, I sprayed lightly with the diluted bleach to create a mottled effect. I also created a ‘bleach pad’ to stamp into. I poured undiluted bleach onto a couple of sheets of folded kitchen roll and placed this into a shallow plastic bowl. I used the lovely sparkly flower head from JOFY 38 and stamped into the bleach pad before stamping all over the Infusions painted background. It gives immediate results as you can see here.

JOFY 38

I made several more backgrounds with the Infusions because I like the vintage results! But these I bleached by spraying the diluted bleach through various stencils to remove colour, as you can see here:

Next, I played with some Neocolours. I clear embossed JOFY’s sparkly flower again all over the card before gessoing with the intention of ironing the ink off later. I find the crayons blend more easily if you gesso the substrate first. I also sprayed quite a lot of water to blend the colours before spraying with the diluted bleach. The result is much paler than the Fresco Acrylics. And the ‘burned’ discolouring occurred again as you can see:

So, now for the fun part. I wanted to use what I had made in two ways: as simple backgounds for some JOFY Christmas images; and for paper piecing on top of some of JOFYs images. I started by stamping on some of the Fresco Acrylic Backgrounds and then ‘fussy cut’ around them. 

Here are some of the cards made up, showing the two different ways of using the created masterboards, with added bling, of course.

I have enjoyed experimenting with diluted spray bleach and I like the way it affects the Acrylics. Although bleach can be a bit scary for some, I would urge you to have a go, but in a well ventilated area! It’s very exciting to see the different results you get from using different media. I actually prefer the Acrylic backgrounds but that might be because the colours were so appropriate for wintery Christmas cards. If you haven’t finished making cards and tags, I would definitely recommend using these techniques. You will knock up a lot of cards in no time. I ended up with 40! 

Chris Cresswell

Blog:www.loopsandlines.blogspot.co.uk

Facebook: Chris Cresswell

Twitter: artmadnana

Instagram:artmadnana

Oh Chris these blew me away, what a stunning array of cards. Amazingly simple but so,so effective backgrounds topped with great images. I can see how much you enjoyed playing. I hope your Christmas fair went really well. 

All of our bloggers love to see your twist on their ideas, particularly if you were inspired directly by their post; so please spare a moment to comment or make your own creative item. They all love to see your feedback and what you can do more than you realise!

We would love to see how you interpret this Bleaching Techniques topic by linking what you make to our 2016 Challenge #23: Bleaching Techniques on this page HERE. The Bleaching Techniques link will close 17:00 (London Time) Sunday, Dec 11th 2016. The winner will be announced 2 hours later at 19:00.

All links go in the draw to win a £50 voucher to spend on products of your choice from the PaperArtsy online store.

NEW PRODUCTS {JoFY stencils} December 2016

Hi Everyone, 

It's Leandra here to announce our final new product release of 2017. These lovely stencils by Jo have been in the works for a while, and you will see shortly how they coordinate with existing JoFY stamps. As ever, this concept is designed to offer you versatility when it comes to layering of paints, texture and sparkle.

So let's take a closer look at the actual stencils (note the codes are not consecutive, so take care when ordering!)

PS032

PS033

PS038

PS039

PS041

PS042

I'll hand over now to Jo Firth-Young who will introduce her new products, and share with you a few ideas. Enjoy and don;t forget to leave us your comments!

~ Leandra

Hi everyone, it's Jo here to share with you some fun ideas with these new stencils. I'm going to run through each of the stencils, and share an idea with each to jump start your creativity.

Stencil PS032: {Life, Joy}

About PS032: This is the first of my stencils featuring large words. I wanted to create word stencils that could be used in art journalling, scrapbooking or on home decor pieces.

Technically PS032 was released sneakily by Mr & Mrs PA in October at the final consumer show of the year they attended, but this is a nice opportunity to bring it to your attention.

Here is a 12x12 journal page. The word is stenciled in Fresco Finish paint (that gorgeous 'Midnight' from Seth Apter's Limited Edition set), and the snowflakes (JOFY48) are stamped, appropriately, in Snowflake Paint.  I love how 'joy' is a statement but not overwhelming element on the page. You could also use 'Joy' on many other celebratory pages - births, engagements, marriages - or even for the little things in life that bring joy to our lives.

On the same stencil is a tall stem - it can be used as a piece of foliage or a flower - the choice is yours. 

For this simple card I created 3 overlapping stems. They were created by stenciling 3 layers; first a white stem, then cleaning and flipping the stencil over (to change the direction of the stems) and finally stenciling the blue stem. To create the final layer the stencil was cleaned and flipped over again (back to the original) and a green stem added. I used a grey pencil to softly add a shadow line to each layer to add depth and definition.

Stencil PS033: {Beauty}

About PS033:  I think this stencil is going to be really useful - the 3 foliage elements will be great on backgrounds underneath the coordinating stamps from JoFY14 set shown above.

This card  was created with a brayered background, and the stencil and the stems from JOFY14. I think this stencil motif would also look lovely using Pearl Glaze on a painted background - very subtle, but here I wanted to show it to you in a more contrasting colour.

 

Stencil PS038: {OK}

About PS038: Another really useful stencil - its obviously going to work really well with JOFY43 because several images are larger versions of the stamps but its also has some really useful background images - gotta love the rings! and who doesn't like a splat or two on a project!

On this panel - based on a brayered background - I stenciled rings and splats from PS038 and also the chevron from PS041.  I wanted to show how well the different stencils can work together.... its just waiting to have a die cut word added when the time/occasion requires.

 Stencil PS039: {Wings}

About PS039: I hope you all like this stencil as much as I do! It deliberately builds up to create a butterfly (all those little shapes fit into the wings) so you can create your own details or use those on the stencil. It also creates a big image which is why it is presented as a half-butterfly. You will need to stencil one half of the butterfly, clean & flip the stencil over, and repeat the image using the body as the meeting point. OR you could have half butterflies flying about - lots of possibilities. 

Here's a diagram showing where the elements fit into the wings... not designed to be a tight fit so you have space to doodle or embellish as you want - great for the zentanglers, doodlers or the paper-piecers out there!

I created a canvas using this stencil as the main focal point.  At 10x14 inches its quite big (for me anyway) and it was lovely to have so much space to create in and a stencil big enough to 'fill' it. On the canvas I also used the scallop and loops borders of PS041 and 'beauty' from PS033.

Here is the butterfly in close up, showing the elements in place.

 Stencil PS041: {Borders}

About PS041: I have a feeling that this could be a 'go-to' stencil for me - all those lovely borders - and yes, they will match up and repeat.

I don't have a sample for each of the borders on this stencil but I've used it several times on the samples in this blog post.
 

Now might be a good time to show you this page from one of my art journals because it uses the borders and the honeycomb stencil coming up. I am normally quite 'less-is-more' when it comes to creating but this spread is definitely 'more-is-more'.. :o)

The pages had been covered in under-papers and looked like this:

When I had been very busy and knocked the colour back with Chalk, blended the blocks in with more of the same colour as the background (the turquoise - Captain Peacock) and added layers of stenciling it looked like this: 

The most vibrant journal pages I've created for a while!.  You can see the hexagons of stencil PS042 wandering across the page (White Fire) and this what I intended them to do, then there is the chevron (Snowflake) from PS041, and the stems (Snowflake) from PS032. The alphabet (in Bougainvillea paint) is a Donna Downey stencil also available from PaperArtsy.

 Stencil PS042: {Hexagons}

About PS042: I think enough has been said about how much I like hexagons so you can imagine how happy this stencil makes me! And I really hope you like it too - its going to be great for journaling and how cute would those busy little bees from JOFY30 look stamped on it! 

I've created a panel using the stencil with a Gelli printed background and then printed a second layer with the stencil itself. I also wanted to remind you that these stencils can be used for paper pieces and so I laid the stencil onto book text, drew around the large circle, cut it out and stuck it to the panel. The little printed circles are from JOFY31, and the small text is from JOFY46.

Phew that is a lot of stencils to talk about all at once!  I hope you like them and will be a useful addition to you art/craft kits.

My upcoming teaching gigs...

I have one final teaching day this year.  On Sunday 11th December I will be teaching a workshop at Birds in the Barn, Marks Tey.  You can find details on my blog (www.jofy.co.uk) and the shop's www.birdsinthebarn.com

I am also a teacher on Wanderlust 2017, you can find details on my blog for that too.

You can find Jo on...

Facebook: www.facebook.com/JoFY.JoFirthYoung/

Instagram, Twitter: @jofyjo

Blog: www.jofirthyoung.blogspot.co.uk

Wow, isn't it great that Jo has added these stencils to her collections. Its great that they work with so many existing stamps too, total bonus! I think these might find there way into a few stockings this Xmas!

Enjoy!

~Leandra 

2016 #23 To Bleach or not To Bleach {by Lesley Ebdon}

2016 Topic 23: Bleach Techniques

Hi everyone, Lesley here this evening to share a couple of cards I made for the current topic of bleaching techniques, using the wonderful Sara Naumann stamps. I have used bleach in the past to ‘paint’ colour out of images and to stamp with but I find it takes a lot of testing of card, ink and even the bleach to some extent, to get the colour you want so I decided to go down the ‘faux bleach’ route to create the backgrounds for some cards. I have to say I’m not too keen on the smell of bleach either, lol!

I began by blending some Distress Inks and Adirondack Inks onto various papers and card and then I tried removing some of the inks by damping a piece of kitchen towel with bleach and using it as a pad to ‘ink’ up the stamp and also using a piece of Cut n Dry foam through a stencil. PS018 Next I used a wet wipe as a pad to ‘ink’ up the stamp and again through the stencil. The stamp is from ESN13

ESN13

The top row of samples were done solely with the wet wipes and I was really pleased with these especially on matte coated card. The bottom row were done with bleach and these were less than successful, either barely removing the ink or changing the colour to something I didn’t want. The old book pages didn’t work very well with bleach or water.

One of the poor samples was stamping bleach onto an old book page. Now this book is one I found when we were emptying Mum’s bungalow and it’s about 80+ yrs old and falling to bits. It’s extremely discoloured but boy, is the paper tough! It drank in the ink but didn’t hardly budge from the bleach so I used it to stamp the star using black Archival Ink.

I cut it out and stuck it to a piece of canvas I had covered with Vermillion Archival.

I then stuck the canvas to some thin cardboard and cut the star out again. Next I applied Prima Clear Crackle Paste and left it to cure. I then watered down some PaperArtsy Gold Metallic paint and brushed it over the crackle, working it into the tiny cracks before wiping it back with a wet wipe. When it was dry I lightly applied some Classic Treasure Gold.

I cut a square from one of the background pieces I liked, inked the edges with the Vermillion then ghost stamped the 3 stars (Hot Picks 1501) using first Vermillion then Black Archival and then the word Believe which I cut from a quote on ESN15. I can still match the word up with the rest of the quote when I want to stamp it all. I attached the square to a base card and finally adhered the canvas star with 3D foam.

ESN15

Card 2. 

I really loved the background that came from using Slate and Cloudy Blue Adirondack Inks on the matte coated card and decided it would look nice with a little sparkle as a Christmas card.

I began by stamping Sara’s star onto white card. I first inked up with Versamark and then again with the Slate Adirondack before stamping the image and then I heat embossed with some new embossing powder I bought last week. It’s clear with very fine glitter and course white granules which gives and nice snowy effect. I used the same powder on some little wooden stars.

I don’t have any of Sara’s lovely Christmas stamp sets so I found one of my favourite Hot Pick sentiments (Xmas 08) and stamped it onto my background piece with Versamark ink and embossed with white. I used a Versamark dabber to apply ink randomly round the edges and then embossed with the sparkly, snowy powder.

Xmas 08

I attached the piece to a card blank, then adhered Sara’s star with 3D foam and the wooden stars with matte gel to finish off.

Well that’s it from me for this year, lol! I hope you enjoyed my ‘cheat’ bleached cards and all the other fabulous inspiration from the rest of this topic’s contributors and that they encourage you to have a go yourself. 

Lesley

You can also find me here

Blog: craftymammalovenhugs

Pinterest:craftymamma2

Facebook:lesley.ebdon

Twitter:Craftymamma2

Beautiful cards  Lesley, i love that you 'cheated' and showed us these great effects that don't use bleach at all. Fantastic for anyone who is sensitive to the smell of bleach. ~Darcy

All of our bloggers love to see your twist on their ideas, particularly if you were inspired directly by their post; so please spare a moment to comment or make your own creative item. They all love to see your feedback and what you can do more than you realise!

We would love to see how you interpret this Bleaching Techniques topic by linking what you make to our 2016 Challenge #23: Bleaching Techniques on this page HERE. The Bleaching Techniques link will close 17:00 (London Time) Sunday, Dec 11th 2016. The winner will be announced 2 hours later at 19:00.

All links go in the draw to win a £50 voucher to spend on products of your choice from the PaperArtsy online store.

2016 #23 Printed Patchwork Cushion {by Carol Fox}

2016 Topic 23: Bleach Techniques

Hi everyone Carol Fox from gingernonutsbits here, joining you this evening with a post about Bleach. I have always had a bit of a love affair with bleach and the effect it can have on fabrics. I remember as a child Tie Dying my clothes as I loved the patterns that bleach made on them, but I think this stopped for a while when my Mum found me Tie Dying my School dress when I was 10, that was not a good day !!! But as I have got older (a lot older) I have learnt to refine my use of Bleach and now I mainly use it for stamping and stippling. I love the way it can add another layer to your projects. 

I have used it to bleach another layer of pattern onto fabric that I printed with the Gelli Plate. I have used this to make a patchwork Cushion, which is a different way to show off your art and add a nice splash of colour to a room at the same time.

Step One: I brayered Mermaid paint directly onto my Gelli Plate, I laid a piece of fabric that I had cut to the size I wanted to work with onto the plate, and pulled of a print in exactly the same way you would if you were using a piece of a paper; the only exception was that I thoroughly pressed the fabric onto the Gelli Plate by rubbing my hand over it very firmly to ensure there was good adhesion to the plate with the fabric. I brayered a 2nd colour of Bougainvillea Paint onto the plate and randomly stamped the large circle shape from the stamp plate set EEG18 over it.

EEG18

Step Two: I then placed the same piece of fabric over the plate again and pulled off a 2nd print, again ensuring that there was good contact with the plate by the fabric. 

Step Three: I repeated this on several other pieces of fabric using the paint colours Eggplant, Guacamole, Cherry Red and Zesty Zing, and the following stencils...

PS001 {by Lin Brown}

PSO31 {by Darcy Wilkinson}

 and

PSO18 {by Emma Godfrey}

Layering up the paints and stencils in different combinations on the Gelli Plate so I had a good selection of backgrounds to use. 

Step Four: I then set about with the bleach to add depth and shade variations to my pieces of fabric. After playing a bit I realised that the opaque colours do not bleach at all, which although this says great things about the paint, it was pretty pants for my project.....or so I thought; But in the end this did give me some great effects on some of the pieces, where the bleach lifted the semi-opaque paints from the fabric and left the opaque ones. I have shown my favourites in the photo below. The bleach worked especially well with the Bougainvillea, Cherry Red, and Eggplant paints. In the photo below I used the bleach with the stencils PS018 and PS001 stencil and the EEG18 set of stamps, applying the bleach with cut and dry foam so it did not seep under the stencil or flood the stamps on application and therefore the bleached image kept its definition. 

Step Five: I now cut up my pieces of fabric to the size and shape that I wanted to give an interesting patchwork effect for my cushion. I laid them out in the shape of my cushion and then added extra touches with stamping using the Stamp sets EEG15 and EEG18, with Zesty Zing, Cherry Red, Bougainvillea, Mermaid, Little Black Dress and Snowflake paint. I attached them to a piece of fabric I had cut to size of my finished cushion using dressmakers Bondaweb.

EEG15

Step 6: I now stitched round all the individual pieces of fabric with my sewing machine. I did debate whether to add some extra stamping with black paint to link the individual pieces together a bit, but I could not decide, so I stitched about a half of it as you can see in the following photo, left it for a while and came back to it to get a fresh look. I decided not to, as I thought more black might overpower the individual fabric pieces too much. I may still go in on odd patches when I have finished all the stitching to add some extra touches with black paint, but at this point I just finished stitching around all the pieces with my sewing machine. 

I completed my cushion by adding a panel of fabric to the back and inserting a cushion pad. As you can see I did decide once it was finished to add some extra stamping using Little Black Dress paint and the Dream word from EEG18 To do this I removed the cushion pad and placed a folded towel inside to protect the back panel off the cushion and stamped my word using the paint. I especially like the way the Dream word fitted inside one of the small stitched panels, like it was made for it. 

I really enjoyed this project as I have made smaller items before with fabric I have printed on the Gelli Plate, I have a dog and a rabbit I made on my blog (link Below), but I had never attempted something this big. If you wanted to have a go yourself there are some great free patterns online to download, or this actual technique would look great on a pencil case to take your pens to craft or journal classes and how great would that be, to use a journal style case you made yourself to use for your journal pens and the doodling you could do on it, I think I have just talked myself into making one. 

I hope you have enjoyed my project, Carol Xx 

Find me at the following places 

Blog:gingernonutsbits

Facebook:GingersAlteredBits

Twitter:Gingernonuts

Youtube:Carol Fox

Pinterest:gingernonuts

Instagram:gingernonuts

I have a regular Journal class starting at That’s Crafty in the new year, the dates arranged so far are the 4th March, 1st April and the 6th May. Bookings can be made by ringing the shop on 01708 344146

Carol this is fabulous, what a brilliant way to use gelli prints. I think every art room should have a cushion like this. Thanks for sharing your techniques, the layering of prints and bleached stencils adds so much dimension. ~Darcy

All of our bloggers love to see your twist on their ideas, particularly if you were inspired directly by their post; so please spare a moment to comment or make your own creative item. They all love to see your feedback and what you can do more than you realise!

We would love to see how you interpret this Bleaching Techniques topic by linking what you make to our 2016 Challenge #23: Bleaching Techniques on this page HERE. The Bleaching Techniques link will close 17:00 (London Time) Sunday, Dec 11th 2016. The winner will be announced 2 hours later at 19:00.

All links go in the draw to win a £50 voucher to spend on products of your choice from the PaperArtsy online store.