emma J wrote:
Oh my god! condensed milk, I have never heard of this before! please explain
the technique plus any other unusual ones you may have.
I'd like to ask about stamping with bleach. Does this ruin your stamps &
must I use special coloured paper / card or will any quality do?
Many thanks,,,, M

=^..^=
meow!




First the condensed milk, then I'll answer your bleach question:

Here in the U.S., it's called "sweetened condensed milk." The
'sweetened' is important because the sugar carmelizes to give you the
effect. Info on the product:
http://www.verybestbaking.com/produc...t/default.aspx

Stamp an image and emboss it. Then use a paintbrush to paint the inside
of the image with condensed milk. Finally, heat the milk until it
starts to carmelize. Tips we learned:

1) Paint a thin layer. If it's too thick, it just bubbles really thick
like the butterfly in the upper left corner of the picture on the above
web page. The "thick" effect might be good for certain uses or
backgrounds, but we didn't like it so much inside the image. All detail
was lost.
2) Let the milk dry a little before applying heat.
3) Heat slowly. As soon as the milk starts to bubble up, pull away the
heat and let the bubbles settle back down. Then heat again. Pull away.
Repeat until you get the desired level of browning.
4) Directed heat can be used for a shading effect, such as the row of
pumpkins seen on our picture, where I made the top half of the image
darker than the bottom.

Stamping with bleach - I've never actually used the bleach on a stamp.
What I have done is stamp an image, emboss it, and then use a watercolor
brush to paint the image (the embossing helps you "stay inside the
lines"), using the bleach as "paint." Other effects can be created by
spritzing bleach onto a colored image or paper and then letting it dry
(great for creating cool backgrounds).

Hope this helps,
Barbara