Magic of Embossing
Good day, fellow crafters. Today I am presenting a card that uses a novel approach, for me at least, in the way that an embossing folder is used. I personally have used them to emboss, deboss, transfer inks into and onto the embossing, and probably a few other things that are escaping me at the moment but I have never embossed my card….LAST! I hope you enjoy.
The theme of this card is butterflies and birthday wishes and it is intended to be for a feminine recipient. To create this card I began with a piece of pink cardstock, the Altenew Dovetail Butterflies layering stamp set, featured left, and Altenew inks in the colors Aqualicious, Purple Wine, and UltraViolet. Utilizing my Misti stamping tool I was able to easily align each layer of the stamp set up in turn, ink them, and stamp them onto the paper to complete the images I then allowed the ink to dry before continuing. To add just a little something extra, I picked a small area on the larger butterfly’s tail to incorporate just a little gold embossing powder, which I set with my heat tool.
Since this technique is a bit reversed in the order of operations I would normally take, the next step was to add the sentiment. I chose the “Birthday Wishes” sentiment from the Altenew Tulip stamp set and then stamped the sentiment, being sure to use even pressure for a clean transfer.
The next step in the process was to trim the background to its final size, which was determined by the size of the A2 embossing folder I employed from Altenew called Dotty Circles, featured below right. As I do every time before I emboss, the next step was to lightly mist the back of the card. The purpose of this step is to give just a bit of moisture to the fibers making up the cardstock so that once the embossing folder is run through the die-cutting machine the will bend instead of break which prevents any tearing. I generally run my embossing through twice just to ensure a clean image.
The last step was assembly. I next trimmed a black mat to the appropriate size and used double-sided tape to adhere the background panel to it. I like using a black mat because it adds visual appeal and goes with every color. I then adhered the composite to a purple A2 card base as the finishing step.
The difference in utilizing this technique is that you definitely have to give more attention to the order of operations in which you want to build your card. It is however a simple technique that I will keep in my arsenal for future use.
