Category Archives: Technique Guides

A Guide to Dry Embossing

Dry embossing, sometimes also known as relief embossing or cold embossing is making a raised design on paper, card or vellum with an embossing stylus tool tracing round inside a stencil.

What you will need to get started with dry embossing:

Dry Embossing Equipment Required

  1. A light box – you will find it useful to backlight the design you are doing, without a light box it is very hard, if not impossible to see the stencil design through the paper/card.
  2. A set of embossing stylus tools – these are metal tools with balls on the end that press into the paper/card. Ones with comfortable grips are best as pressing down with an embossing tool for a long time can be uncomfortable if it digs into your hand.
  3. Heavy paper, card or vellum – heavier paper or light to medium card works best as thin paper can rip quite easily, vellum also works very well.
  4. Embossing stencils – these stencils are usually made from brass or silver coloured metal.
  5. Masking tape – to fix the stencil and paper in place, it needs to be a tape that will remove cleanly once you are finished so it’s a good idea to test the tape you intend to use first. A specialist craft masking tape designed for the job is always best.

How to dry emboss:

Place your stencil on the centre of your light box with the side of how you want the finished design to be facing down and fix it in place with a few strips of masking tape. Take care to ensure the tape does not overlap the stencil design. The particular stencil used here is a Dreamweaver Stencil – Christmas Tree.

Stencil taped to light box.

Place your paper, card or vellum over the stencil and secure the corners and sides with more strips of masking tape. Switch on the light box so you can clearly see the stencil design behind the paper.

Card taped over stencil

Then carefully trace around the inside of the stencil design with your embossing stylus tool pressing firmly but taking care not to rip the paper. Each embossing stylus tool has different sized balls on each end so choose one that best fits the size of your stencil or experiment and choose the one that creates the best effect. You can either trace just the outer edge for an embossed outline image or the whole area of each stencil piece for an entire embossed image.

Once you’ve finished carefully remove the tape and turn the card/paper over, the design you traced is now raised i.e. embossed into the paper.

Finished dry embossed design

You can either keep it quite simple and use the design as it is or you can colour it with Twinkling H2Os, acrylics, chalks, metallic marker pens, glitter or glitter glue. You might want to keep the stencil in place while you apply colours but you can also colour your design freehand after the stencil has been removed. Experiment with colouring the whole design in one colour or mixed colours, or you can just highlight one part of the design.

If you do use any wet colours such as paints or glitter glues make sure you clean your stencil in warm soapy water before the paint or glue dries onto the stencil.

Tip: Why not try some hand drawn designs on vellum without stencils by placing the vellum on a craft mat and pressing the embossing tool in to draw little swirls, holly leaves, stars or hearts etc. With white vellum the embossed bits turn solid white in colour which is a nice effect.

Technique guide written by Janine

Get Started With Fun Flock

One of our great products is Fun Flock from Stampendous. Fun Flock is a fine fibre perfect for creating fuzzy accents on cards, scrapbook pages and other craft projects. You can even mix glitter in with the fun flock to create sparkly bold images.

Sour Apple Green Fun Flock
Sour Apple Green Fun Flock

To get started with Fun Flock you will either need an appropriate adhesive OR items to use Fun Flock to accent a rubber stamped image.

To use Fun Flock with rubber stamped images you will need the following:

Rubber Stamp
Embossing Heat Tool
Embossing Ink Pad or Pigment Ink Embossing Pen
Stamp N Bond Adhesive Powder

Here is a list of some adhesive alternatives:

Glitter Bond
Chisel Tip 2 Way Dual Action Glue Pen
Fine Ball Point 2 Way Glue Pen Squeeze and Roll
Hi-Tack Original Very Sticky Glue
Magi-Tac Pressure Sensitive Adhesive
Double Sided Adhesive Sheets
Double Sided Sticky Tape

How to apply Fun Flock:

Using On a Rubber Stamped Image:
Stamp the image using a pigment ink (i.e an embossing ink pad ) or draw the image with a pigment ink pen (i.e. use a Dual Tip Embossing Pen) and then sprinkle the ink image with Stamp N Bond Adhesive Powder. Tap off excess powder, brushing powder away from around the image if necessary. Use an embossing heat tool to melt the powder until it turns clear and shiny and immediately pour Fun Flock over the surface. Press the flock into the heated adhesive to ensure you have a good coverage. Brush away any excess flock. Tip: Put excess Stamp N Bond powder and excess Fun Flock back in their respective pots to avoid wastage.

Shown below is an example of using Fun Flock with a rubber stamped image. Both images have been stamped with a Groovy Hearts Woodware Francoise Woodmounted Rubber Stamp we have inked it in red to show the image up but as mentioned before, you can use a clear or tinted embossing ink pad for the base ink. Then on the lower image Chili Pepper Red Fun Flock has been applied using the method as described above. Click on the picture for a larger view.

Groovy Hearts

Using a Glue Such As Glitter Bond, Hi-Tack Glue or Glue Pens:
Fun Flock may be applied by using glue. Apply the glue to the area to be flocked and then sprinkle Fun Flock generously over the adhesive and tap off any excess. Set aside to allow the adhesive to dry, then brush away excess flock. When using multiple colors on one project, apply the darkest colours first and work to the lightest colours last. The area you flock can be the surface of a shape punched out using a craft punch.

An example of fun flock that has been applied with glue is pictured below. The teddy bear shape has been punched out using the Woodware Large Lever Craft Punch – Teddy Bear. The left hand image is the punched shape before it is flocked and the image on the right is the same shape which has then been covered with Hi-tack glue and then with Snow Cone Blue Fun Flock, this flocked shape would be ideal for new baby or Christening cards. Click on the picture for a larger view.

Teddy Bears

Using Magi-Tac, Double Sided Adhesive Sheet or Double Sided Sticky Tape:
Fun Flock can be applied to a large area by covering the area to be flocked with a double sided adhesive sheet or Magi-Tac. Cover the entire sticky area with flock, pressing or brayering in for even coverage. You can then stamp onto the surface, cut shapes out or punch shapes out.

Apply to double-sided sticky tapes in the same way to create stripes or borders. Shown below is a piece of card where Envious Green Fun Flock and Chili Pepper Red Fun Flock have been used on strips of 6mm double sided sticky tape to demonstrate how flocked stripes can be made. Click on image for a larger view.

Flock Stripes

Technique guide written by Janine