Swallowtail Bleaching Technique

Hi everyone it's Narelle here to share with you a fun technique.

A few days ago you would of seen my page for the August mood board and sketch. On that page I had two large black butterflies which were a lovely lemon colour. I created those butterflies using bleach. Here is a reminder of the page.

I quite simply just coloured the butterflies with bleach. Here's how you can do it too.

First, rub the surface of the card stock with your embossing buddy. This will remove the static and make sure that the embossing powder does not stick to where we don't want it.

Then you stamp the Swallowtail onto the card stock using Versamark. Versamark is a clear ink which stays wet longer giving you the time to add embossing powder without the image drying.

Now sprinkle your embossing powder over the stamped image. Make sure you get a good coverage. Tip off the excess. If you have some powder stuck in the intricate parts of the design where you don't want it, just flick the back of the card stock and it should come off.

To set the powder and create the glossy look you need to melt the powder using a heat source. I used the Heat Tool which is fast and effective. But a word of warning here, even though heat guns look a bit like hair dryers, they are way more hotter and will easily burn. So please be careful. And you can't use a hair dryer for this as it will blow the powder away as they normally have a much more powerful fan.

As you heat the embossing powder it will start to melt and go glossy. Heat the image in sections until all the powder has melted.

Now fill an aqua painter with bleach. I just used the household cleaning variety of bleach. Please fill your aqua painter in a well ventilated room and its probably best to use gloves. Make sure you mark your aqua painter so you don't accidentally pick up the bleach one when you want to water colour in the future.

Now just paint over the image and you will see the magic happen. I have used Basic Grey card stock which turns a lovely lemon when bleached. As the card stock dries the colour will show more. For the best effect, colour the image then let it dry. If you want more colour to show, then just keep repeating the process.

Every card stock will react differently and give different colours when bleached. So have a play with different colours to see what effects you can get. It is a really fun technique that is easy to do.

I hope you try it soon.

Thanks for dropping by.

Have a great day.

Cheers,

Narelle