Last week I shared a card design featuring a gold heat embossed background, and today I’ve got another that uses the same red rubber cling stamp, this time on vellum for a more delicate look.
In my early days of card making last year, I was not the most skilled when it came to working with embossing powder and vellum. Along the way however, I’ve picked up a few tips. Some are from other talented crafters, and some (many) are the result of trial and error – heavy on the error! Here’s what I’ve learned:
- Heavyweight vellum is key. I like this one, which seems to hold up to heat much better than others I’ve previously tried.
- Don’t forget to swipe the vellum with an anti-static powder bag before applying the embossing ink. This is the same tip I’d include for heat embossing on absolutely anything, but just a reminder!
- Before heat setting, hold the vellum up to a source of good light and check for stray bits of powder. If you see any, gently and carefully wipe them away. A small paintbrush is SO handy for this and well worth the time!
- Let your heat gun get really hot to prevent the vellum from warping, and know that it will melt very quickly so try not to hold it over the vellum for longer than you need to.
- If you’re having trouble with getting a clean embossed image, or find that the vellum is curling too much, try embossing from underneath instead of above.
For this card, I began by (per the tip above) wiping my vellum panel with my anti-static powder bag and stamping the Pinkfresh Studio Winterberry Background Cling Stamp in clear embossing ink. I poured some fine detail white embossing powder on top to cover the entire image, tapped off all the excess, and gave it a careful look over in case any unwanted powder still remained. Luckily this wasn’t the case, so I went straight to heat setting the powder.
Next up came the sentiment. I used the 2-piece Joy Die from The Stamp Market, cutting the background piece from blue cardstock and the thinner script from glitter cardstock. I paired this with “to the world” which is a stamp in the coordinating Joy stamp set, and centered these on the vellum panel.
When it came to adhering the vellum to the white cardstock, I opted for tiny clear adhesive dots. While not totally invisible under vellum, I was able to hide them quite well under the sentiment, as well as under the white embossed areas. With the white underlying card panel, you’d have to look very, very closely to spot them!
I hope you’ve found these embossing tips helpful, and if I’ve missed any, would love to hear yours too! Feel free to comment below.