DIY – How to emboss your invitations
So after you’ve seen how NOT to emboss your invitations, I should probably show you how to emboss them.
We ordered custom stamps, used dark brown ink and took the pads out of their containers to make a larger stamp pad, a stamp-a-majig, a heat gun from Joann’s and last but not least clear embossing powder.
Step one: Set your stamp a majig to where you’d like to stamp.
Step two: Stamp down. Our stamps were a bit large, so it was best to use two sets of hands for this project. For the bird stamp; Mr. D’orsay would stamp down, MOH MB would push down again using the wooden handle to make it even.
Step three: Quickly powder. Glittering hills of clear powder, tip off then hand to your heat gun operator. If you don’t have a heat gun operator, then you can leave all the stamped/powdered ones until you’re ready to heat them. The important part is quickly applying the powder to the stamped area. Don’t tap the paper to removed excess powder, wait till after you’ve embossed and simply dust the sheets with a rag.
DO NOT leave your cat alone near a hill of embossing powder…
Step four: Bring on the heat! Hold your heat gun an 1-2 inches away from the paper, be careful because you don’t want to burn the paper! You can see below when the powder begins to turn.
Un-official Step five: Attach the invite, we used tombow adhesive and it worked great!
This was a fun and rewarding project once we figured out all the kinks. I highly recommend practicing on scrap paper till you work everything out.
Most important lessons learned:
- Figure out the best stamping method for you and your stamps. Its very important to get an clean equal amount of ink on the page
- Use colored ink and clear powder – NOT the other way around
- A stamp-a-majig, though$12.00 turns out to be worth it
Did you have to learn any DIY lessons the hard way? Do you have any helpful embossing tips?
