So Excited About How This Turned Out!

 I made a trip to Hobby Lobby yesterday.  I saw these embossing folders by Vintaj, in the jewelry isle.  I hadn't seen these before and didn't know that they were designed to emboss metal.  When I came home and started reading about them, I was disappointed because I don't do jewelry and I thought that I had wasted my money.  I thought about returning them but decided to open the package and see what it looked like.  As you can see above, it looks just like an embossing folder only it is metal.  I wasn't sure how well it would work with paper, would it tear it, would it poke holes in it?  Then I thought, what would happen if I used cardboard and embossing powder to give it a metal look.  I am very happy and excited with the results.  If you watch this video, you can see the intended use of this product.

I cut a 1 1/2 inch square of cardboard.  The kind that comes at the back of a tablet of paper.

 

 I placed the square so that the image of the single bird was centered on the card.   I closed the folder over the cardboard.

 

I placed the folder in my cuddlebug sandwich, A plate, B plate, emboss folder with cardboard sandwiched in, B plate.

I ran the sandwich through my cuddlebug.

 Opened the sandwich to find this wonderful emboss.  The next step was to see if I could give it a look of metal by using embossing powder.

 I placed the embossed card on my embossing ink pad with the raised image facing the pad. I pressed the card and swiped it across the pad to ensure the whole card was covered.

I covered the card with Recollections copper embossing powder.

 I applied heat and watched the embossing powder melt and reveal the image.

 

How cool is this?

 

My next thought was, can I give it a patina look?  I purchased this ink (sorry the picture is blurry) with the embossing folder and thought, what the hech, lets see what happens.   So I squeezed a little ink onto a paper plate.  I dabbed my finger into the ink and rubbed it on the copper.  I used a damp paper towel to remove any excess.

 

 

 I LOVE how this looks and can think of so many ways to use it as an embellishment in my other crafts.

I tried it a second time using my favorite embossing powder Recollections, Aged Silver.  This one didn't turn out as well, due to the fact that the embossing powder was too thick and washed out the dry embossed image.  So I started wondering if I embossed the card with embossing powder first, could I then run it through the cuttlebug to dry emboss it.  I really thought that it wouldn't work because it would crack the melted embossing powder.

I started by cutting my 1 1/2 inch cardboard and coating it with embossing ink.

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 I covered it with the powder and shook off the excess.  I applied heat with my heat gun.  You have to heat this one from the bottom of the card.  The powder is chunky and if you apply the heat on the top, it blows the bigger chunks off.

This is the result.  Another thing to be careful of is applying too much heat in any one spot.  This causes the pigment in the powder to turn clear.  You can see at the top of this card where I was a little heavy handed with the heat gun.

Next, I placed the card on the raised side of the embossing folder, over the part of the image that I wanted embossed and placed the card powder side up.  I closed the folder and squished it with my hands some because the embossing made it very thick.  I made my cuttlebug sandwich the same as before and ran it through.  I have to say that I was hesitant about continuing because it was hard getting it through.  I thought that I was either going to break one of the plates, which could be replace relatively cheaply, or worse, I would break my cuttlebug, which would be a lot more expensive to replace.  It was a very tight fit but it went through.  I did learn that I should put less of a coat of powder on the card so that it isn't as thick.

This is what I saw when I opened the folder...still not sure if it worked.  I picked the card off and look what I saw.

Sooooo cool!

These are more results of playing with this technique.  The third card on the top is the card that didn't work because the powder washed out the dry embossed image.  I decided to punch it with my star punch and use some of the patina ink on it.  Another nice surprise!  Then I wondered if I could use the same method using my Tim Holtz embossing folders or my Cuttlebug embossing folders.  I cut another piece of cardboard, picked a section of image from the Gears folder.  I ran it through the Cuttlebug and the image embossed beautifully.  I applied the copper embossing powder and heated it and look at the results.  How fun!