Double embossing: dry & heat

Hello, it's Verity with another video and blog post as a Creative team member for WOW!  Have you tried adding double embossing to your papercrafts? You can easily combine dry and heat embossing to create fun and stylish embossed cards with that extra step that takes your cards up a notch. Heat embossing allows you to add colour and highlight dry embossing and there are many ways you can do that. Today I'm showing you how you can create 4 cards with 3 different techniques. As always, there are so many colour combinations you can go with due to a whole range of colour powders at your disposal. 

Double embossing: dry & heat video:

(You can view this directly on WOW! Embossing Powder YouTube Channel HERE)

Double embossing: dry & heat photos:

Technique 1: Embossing folders

The first technique combines heat embossing with embossing folders as the dry embossing aspect. Embossing folders have two sides, one that has small raised areas of the design pattern and the other side with the small recess of the design pattern.  For the first card, we're going to use the side that has the raised design pattern - this will emboss into the card but if we add embossing ink onto the folder prior to embossing, we can create a faux letterpress look.

Add Clear ultra slow drying embossing ink from WOW! to the side with the raised design pattern. Make sure you lightly tap the pad down to transfer the ink onto the folder. Do not smoosh or press down hard as this will transfer ink to the folder in the areas around the design pattern.

Place a piece of tranquil teal cardstock from Gina K designs into the folder, closed it shut and ran this through your die cutting machine with your sandwich setup for embossing folders.

Next, cover the debossed side (where the pattern is pressed inwards) with metallic rich gold pale embossing powder from WOW! AS the ink was only on the raised areas of the folder, the powder will only stick to the debossed areas where the ink was transferred to. Next, use your dual speed heat gun from WOW! to heat set the powder and you end up with a beautiful faux letter pressed debossed design.

To finish the card off,  add a sentiment using the Fine alphabet dies from Altenew out of white cardstock and white foam for dimension.  A sentiment from the 'Reason to smile' stamp set from Altenew was heat embossed in matching gold powder and foam mounted onto the card. Lastly, add a few gold sequins from a Sequin mix from Lucy's cards.

For the second card, use the alternative side on the embossing folder.  This time add the embossing ink to the side where the design pattern is recessed into the folder and you have a larger area of raised plastic. Using your ink pad, swipe the pad over the side of the folder - you don't need to worry about getting the ink the recessed areas when you're using this side.

Repeat the process of running this through your die cutting machine with cardstock. This time add the embossing powder to the embossed side, where the design pattern is raised. The ink will have transferred to the areas of cardstock around the embossed design pattern. Once more, heat set this for a lovely metallic embossed background with the dry embossed design remaining as the coloured cardstock.

Again to finish this card, create another sentiment with the alphabet dies out of matching card and adding these to the corresponding letters cut out of white foam. Add a smaller stamp sentiment in Daydream ink by Catherine Pooler and once more finish with some gold sequins from Lucy's cards.

So both of these cards use an embossing folder to transfer the embossing ink to add some heat embossing detail to the dry embossing. 

Technique 2: Dry embossing with stencils

For the second the technique we are going to create double embossing using stencils. So to do this, tape your stencil down to your card panel. I'm using the Spring garden stencil by Altenew. To dry emboss the stencil you need a rubber embossing mat - this is a flexible mat to run through your die cutting machine. You could also use a sheet of fun foam. 

Place your card and stencil down onto your embossing mat and place a cutting mat over the top. You need to run this through your die cutting machine set up as though you are going to emboss dies. You may need to add a few shims to your sandwich depending on your machine.

When this comes out of the machine, you will see your stencil design has embossed into the cardstock. Before you remove the stencil add embossing ink over the stencil to add heat embossing. I added a heart mask to add a shaped design to the heat embossing. Once you have smooshed your ink down, remove the stencil and cover with powder using Long Island Teal embossing glitter. To heat set this, it is best to heat from underneath. This will start to melt the powder trapping the glitter in it. If you heat from the top, your gun may blow the glitter away before the powder has melted to trap it in.

To accentuate the shaped design more, I added the heart mask back over the top to ink blend 'It's boy' Catherine pooler ink over the top. The embossing powder will resist the ink and colour the background. My ink blending brushes had some leftover yellow on them, so I ended up with a teal/aqua colour rather than light blue, but it ties in quite well with the colour scheme. 

The card panel was added a to a card base made out of tranquil teal card stock and again, and finished off with a sentiment using the same alphabet dies. The heat embossing sentiment added was from the Thinking of you stamp set from Altenew using Oceanic embossing powder from WOW! Finally, a few sequins from Trinity stamps were added to finish the card off.

This technique is great for adding detail to soft subtle dry embossing from stencilling and masking your heat embossing, allows the embossed pattern to continue with more subtle tone on tone continuous look.

Technique 3: Dry embossing with dies

For the last the technique we're going to use dies to dry emboss and heat emboss as well.

I'm using a couple of dies from Altenew's Layered rose die set and grouped these in a way that's pleasing to the eye. To dry emboss the dies, we use the same sandwich as before when we embossed the stencil, but without any shims to prevent the die from cutting the card or causing cracking of the cardstock.

Before you place the dies onto your card, we can add embossing ink to the die's cutting edge. So as with the first card, apply the ink by lightly tapping the pad down. Do not smoosh or press hard as ink will transfer to all of the die and we only want it to apply to the cutting edge for the pattern.

Place you dies onto your cardstock with the cutting edge facing down - I did this over on my machine to prevent the dies from moving once on the card. If they move, ink transfer more and you won't get a crisp line.

Carefully remove your dies and cover with powder. The powder will adhere to the ink in the recessed design where the die has embossed into the card stock. For this card, I used Oceanic embossing powder, which is a lovely blue dark teal.

The first time I did this, I got a small amount of rippling in my cardstock, so I redid the panel but I didn't want to waste the embossing I had done. So I used the coordinating dies to cut out the flower and two leaves. So after adding the panel to a card base made out of tranquil teal cardstock, I added the flower and leaves with foam pads for dimension. Another sentiment was added with the alphabet dies and used rich gold pale to heat emboss the secondary sentiment.

So this technique can allow you to stretch your dies to double emboss and the heat embossing highlights the fine detail design.

All three techniques have there own ways to add heat embossing to dry embossing, whether it is fine to highlight details when using dies to emboss, or bold metallic backgrounds or faux letterpress embossing using embossing folders or selective heat embossing to accentuate subtle dry embossing from stencils. You can great a whole range of looks to suit any style of crafting and for any occasion. So make sure you have a go and try a couple of these techniques out. 

Supplies for Double embossing: dry & heat designs:

Other supplies used:

Stamps used: Reason to Smile & Thinking of You (Altenew)

Stencils used: Spring Garden (Altenew)

Dies used: Fine Alphabet (Altenew)

Embossing Folder: Blossom Vines Xcut (Docrafts)

Inks: It's a boy and Daydream (Catherine Pooler)

Sequins: Rock Candy Confetti Mix (Trinity Stamps and Sunset & Decadence (Lucy's Cards)

I hope you enjoyed today's video and stay tuned for more to come. If you make a card with this technique, make sure to tag us #wowembossingpowder so we can check your creations out!

Till next week,

Verity

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