Well for today I have a tutorial on heat embossing. I will try to give you a tutorial of some sort every Saturday.
For this tutorial you will need an embossing gun, stamp, versamark ink, embossing buddy, embossing powder, cardstock and two coffee filters.
First you are going to want to rub your embossing buddy on the cardsock that you are embossing. The embossing buddy is a litte linen pouch with powder inside. When on your cardstock the powder prevents the embossing powder from sticking in places where you don't want it.
Stamp your image onto the cardstock using Versamark Ink. Versamark is a clear ink dries slowly and is slightly sticky. It grabs and holds onto the embossing powder easier. For heat embossing you should either use Versamark or Craft ink because classic ink dries too quickly to hold onto the embossing powder.
Hold your cardstock over the coffee filter or if it is small enough set the cardstock in the coffee filter and pour the embossing powder over the stamped images.
Lift up your cardstock and let the excess embossing powder slide off into the coffee filter.
Give the cardstock a good flick on the back to get all of the extra little grains of embossing powder off your cardstock.
Use the top coffee filter to pour the embossing powder back into the container. By having a second coffee filter below the container it will catch the powder that you spill instead of spilling it onto your work table.
Use the heat gun to melt the embossing powder. The heat gun is not a hair dryer, do not move it around back and fourth. Hold the heat gun steady until the powder raises and turns shiny. Make sure the image is completely heated before turning off the heat gun.
Once you are finished embossing let the cardstock cool a little bit before picking it up. It will be hot.
You now have a shiny raised image. This is great for coloring to keep the watercolor or marker ink in the lines. Here I have used black embossing powder. You can also get Gold, Silver, Clear, White, or Irridescent Ice (this is like clear embossing powder with glitter in it).
Heat embossing is lots of fun and gives you a really nice shiny image. Come back tomorrow to see the card that I used these embossed butterflies on. Have fun stamping!
