E Cubed Arts

Embossing is cool

So it hit me while I was in the store of a major crafts retailer in New England (which shall remain nameless but has possibly become my most favorite place on earth!!), I had a brilliant idea - emboss designs onto board for journal covers. The photos below are three of my first attempts:





















From this experiment, I've learned a couple of things:
1. Don't get the ink on your fingers - it'll end up somewhere on the board, and screw up your design.
2. Don't over ink the stamp, or you'll get the edge of the stamp on your cover as well as your image.
3. Tap the embossing powder off sharply - excess embossing powder will screw up your design and maybe mess up your heat source. If you put the embossing powder on your image right away, a sharp tap isn't going to hurt it and will save you a giant mess.
4. If you're using your gas burners as a heat source, wear mitts - I particularly like the silicon grabbers (think: your hand in an alligator shape covered in silicon) - and open a window. Warm board/ink/embossing powder stinks to high heaven.
5. Don't overcook the embossing powder - it will boil and scorch eventually (look closely at the center 'flower' of the fleur-de-lis on the red board above.
6. Keep an eye on the shape of the board - you may get some warping with extreme heat.
7. BE CAREFUL WITH YOUR HEAT SOURCE!! EK's first two rules of crafting are "don't get dead," and "don't bleed on your crafts." Blisters are bad too...

Labels: blank book, embossing, ink, journal, stamp

posted by EK @ 12:02 AM