Last Monday I offered my first Stamp Club in my Country Loft studio. It was like a private party! We had such a great time. It started when October's hostess, Nancy, set out our treats: not just cookies and juice but cute little treat bags that she'd purchased at our local 'pharmacy' and plain old water bottles decorated to match the bags. Now how cute is that? Lovely Lilac and Green Galore were the colors of the day!
The focus of our first stamp club was on using a fairly normal household product to make use of whatever stamps the gals already had in their larder. We used household bleach in 3 simple cards, each a little different process than the other. I know there are many things that can be done with bleach but I'll save the others for another time. I'd been gone for over three weeks*, returning on Saturday prior to my Monday club meeting so I wanted to keep it nice and simple.
Bleach maintains its volatility for about 20-25 minutes so I refreshed their paper towel stampin' pads several times during the 'meeting'. So how do you make a stampin' pad for bleach? I do it by taking one or two (depending upon the size) paper towels and fold them till they are about 3" x 5". Then pour some bleach, carefully, on the paper towel pad until it's saturated. Place the pad on a plate with a flat bottom. As soon as possible after stamping your image, clean your stamp using Stampin' Up!'s Stampin' Mist and Stampin' Scrub pad. You want to get all of that bleach off so it won't slowly eat at your stamp.
The first card we did highlighted the Pocket Silhouette and Stem Sayings stamp sets and the Curly Label Punch.
Ingredients:
Stamp Set: Pocket Silhouette, Stem Sayings
Cardstock: Kraft, Chocolate Chip, Kiwi Kiss, Tangerine Tango, and Whisper White
Ink: Chocolate Chip and bleach
Accessories: Curly Label Punch, Cutter Kit
Size of Finished card: 4-1/4" x 5-1/2
For the second card we bleach stamped a background image
Stamp Set: Priceless, Say it With Scallops (this year's Ronald McDonald House Charity stamp set: $2 from the sale of each stamp set is donated to the RMDH Charity by Stampin' Up! You can locate it quickly right inside the back cover of the 2008 Fall Winter Catalog.)
Cardstock: Riding Hood Red, Not Quite Navy, Whisper White
Ink: More Mustard, bleach
Accessories: Chocolate Chip 1/4" grosgrain, Scallop Square Punch, dimensionals
Size of Finished card: 3" x 3"
For the third card I tried something fun so I could show how bleach turns different colors on different cardstocks. I cut a bunch of 1" square scraps (20 per card) from various scraps of the 48 Stampin' Up! cardstock colors. I tried to pull lights and darks from all four color groups. I gave each guest a small hostess incentive stamp. After refreshing everyone's bleach pad, they stamped on each square and could see the different resulting colors. The cards were meant as samplers but actually turned out cute enough to be used as a card you'd actually give someone. The sample you're looking at is mine and it does not look good enough to be mailed off. My guests were more careful with the placement of their scraps.
I hope you enjoyed our little bleaching lesson. Leave a comment if you'd like to see some other ways it can be used. I'd be happy to share more ideas.
*I went to my daughter's home for the at-home birth of their third child. Well, he was due on the 5th and decided to make his entry on the 14th of October. Then I wanted to stay for a week or so to help them all adjust to the new size of their family and keep the 4 yr old and 21 month old occupied while Mommy got on her feet.
