Dry Embossing
Written by Creative Director
Heather Moll
 Dry embossing is a great way to
add texture and dimension to
your layouts and cards. There
are so many ways to dry emboss –
using metal or plastic stencils,
chipboard, stamps, etc. – and
different things to emboss on –
cardstock, patterned paper, and
metal. All you need to get
started is an embossing tool, a
piece of glass and a piece of
wax paper. I use a stylus that
has two ends that are different
sizes and a piece of glass that
I removed from the inside of a
picture frame. A light box is
also very handy and helpful but
you don’t NEED one to dry
emboss. 
If you are
using a stencil, you just tape
it to the front of the paper
with removable tape. Turn the
paper over, so the stencil is
face down, and use another piece
of the removable tape to attach
to the piece of glass or light
box. Then rub the back of the
paper with the piece of wax
paper. This will help your tool
glide smoothly over the paper
and help keep the paper from
tearing.  Then using the
embossing tool, outline the
design of the stencil. This will
create an image that ‘pops up’
on the opposite side of the
paper.
Embossing
with chipboard is the same as
using a stencil if you have a
negative image of the chipboard
shape. In my ‘golf’ layout, I
punched the chipboard letters
out of their backing and then
embossed using the negative
image. If you don’t have a
negative image, you can create
one my tracing the image onto
scrap chipboard and cutting it
out with an exacto knife.
For the
‘Fly Away’ layout, I used my 2”
Roman alphabet stamps from
Scraptivity to create the title.  I stamped the letters FLY onto
chipboard, cut them out with my exacto knife and then taped the
actual letter to the back of the
metal, flipped it over and used
my stylus to trace around the
letters.
Dry
embossing may look intimidating
at first but it is a simple,
inexpensive way to jazz up your
layouts! Give it a try! Don't
forget to post your dry
embossing projects in our gallery under "Show." |
