Have you ever used bleach?
Now, I don’t mean on your bathroom sink or on your hair, but rather have you used bleach on your photos?
I hadn’t until very recently when I saw a tutorial on it during Alisa Burke’s Anti-Scrapbook class and here’s the result of my experimenting with bleach and the ‘Career Girl’ kit: 
The tutorial had stated that to recreate the particular effect then the technique should only be tried on photographs which had been printed in a lab. But, as I didn’t have any spare lab photos which I felt happy to begin slattering with bleach, I decided to see how home printed photos would hold up under the chemicals!
By using a self-portrait [the easiest renewable source of photos] I reckoned that if it suffered a complete disaster I could just as easily take and print another. So I laid out a photograph on to the kitchen worktop and began the experiment and while the green streaky effect I achieved is nothing like the fiery reds an yellows in the tutorial – I really love how it turned out:
The colours in my finished photo perfectly co-ordinated with the fabric, lettering and paper from the ‘Career Girl‘ kit …. and if there’s anything you should know about me by now it’s that that I like picking out things that match!!
With that in mind, the topic of my layout is that I’m in the process of growing my hair long, with the journaling: “After years of cutting it I’ve decided that I’m definitely (almost 100%, probably, certainly, maybe) going to let it grow (at least] for now”. So, imagine how happy I was to find that the vintage dictionary pages in my kit included definitions such as this:
And this:
So, have I tempted you then? Any plans to grow your hair or bleach your photos yet? Or have I confused you into planning to bleach your hair? Either way …you can always photograph the results, scrap with them and upload your pages to the Gauche Alchemy Flickr group!
If you’re still not totally convinced about mixing photos and bleach and would like me to blog a step-by-step tutorial on it for you – just leave a comment below to let me know. I’m nice like that. 😉
I’m even nicer when I’m reminding you that if you order from the Gauche Alchemy Artfire shop between now and Monday you’ll get 20% off with the code: CYBERMONDAY.
Right then, I’m off before you trample me in the rush to get your hands on Gauche goodies and bleach. I wouldn’t stand a chance!!!
I’ll see you soon.
Julie 🙂
Filed under: design team, inspiration |
Gauche Alchemy 
Wow! What a fantastic photo, Julie! Well worth the experimentation :).
This is so amazing…thanks for the inspiration!
Great photo julie – the bleach effect is amazing!
{couldn’t help noticing your brackets helpfully around the ‘hair’ definition.. and the definitions above for ‘hag’ and ‘haggard’… :oD Were you tempted to cover them up?!}
Love the effect!! I like to stamp with bleach.
I love the effect. Now I need to find the time to try it out. Thanks Julie. Nice One.
I love that you’ve made something that sounds as harsh as bleaching look so soft and pretty. Much cleverness. 🙂
If I squint, it also makes me think you could totally pull off blue hair. Tempted?
x
Love the bleach effect, will have to try this!
This is gorgeous, love the effect and yes I am trying to grow my hair at the moment though it’s already annoying me 😉 😀