Embossing is one of the many techniques you can use for your scrapbook ideas. It is a great way of making an image stand out.
Basic heat embossing – ink the stamp that you would like to emboss and press firmly onto your chosen piece of card or scrapbook paper. Sprinkle embossing powder over the stamped image removing any excess embossing powder by lightly tapping the paper or card. Then use a heat gun to melt the powder giving the image a raised effect.
Double embossing – ink your chosen rubber stamp, press onto card or paper and emboss as normal. Use pens, water pencils, chalks or any other craft supplies to color your image. Sponge or brush clear ink onto the colored areas of the image.
Pour clear embossing powder over the entire image and heat with a heat gun.
Over embossing – This technique is used to create a really glossy image.
As before, ink and rubber stamp an image of your choice. Use clear enamel embossing powder and heat from underneath either your scrapbook paper or card rather than from the top. Once the powder has completely melted repeat the process over and over until a smooth shiny surface appears.
Rainbow Embossing – Use a clear ink pad to ink your rubber stamp. Make sure you use ink that stays wet for quite some time as you will be using more than one colour of embossing powder. Rubber stamp your image and pour one colour over part of the image then shake off the excess and use another colour for the rest of the image. Heat with a heat gun for a rainbow effect.
Clear on clear embossing – This type of embossing looks best on darker pieces of card or scrapbook paper. Use a clear ink to rubber stamp your image and emboss with clear embossing powder. This will give you an image that is elegant and will catch your eye with out being too bold.
Embossing is not just used with rubber or clear stamps it can also be a great way of making the edges of a card look totally different. Using a dauber ink or a small ink pad dab ink all around the edge of a card and emboss as normal.
When embossing any handmade cards or scrapbook page layouts always ensure the surface is clean. One tip I have discovered is to wipe a small amount of baby powder over the scrapbook paper or card before you stamp your image and then add the embossing powder. Adding the baby powder ensures the embossing powder only sticks to the inked images and does not stick to the fibres of the card or paper.
You may find when heating your image the piece of card bends. Patience is the key here. Do not add the image to your scrapbook or card project straight away. Use a heavy book to flatten the image before adding it to your card or scrapbook page layout.
