Etsy & Embossing

So I’ve been reading a couple blogs and wedding sites during the planning process and have learned so many different things that we’re going to try and incorporate into our wedding. I read about embossing a couple of times on the Bee and thought it wouldn’t be that hard to do myself.

Our wedding invites have a mini (and I do mean mini compared to other invites that I have seen online) flourish which I was just going to print out along with the rest of the wording. After reading about embossing and Etsy (a site where you can buy and sell handmade crafts.) I thought “why not add a little flair to that flourish?” So I put out an order for a custom made stamp based on the flourish we were using on the invite. I received 4 bids and took one of the middle prices after reading his positive reviews.

After a couple emails back and forth on the actual font name of the flourish, my Etsy seller created a stamp and sent it in the mail. I made the order Saturday night and received the stamp in the mail yesterday afternoon. I was so excited I even called myself a craft nerd on facebook. I could finally use the embossing powder, stamp ink and embossing heat tool that I purchased this past weekend (all with coupons of course!). I practiced on some paper and then moved to print outs of our invites. Not all of them turned out perfect, but I have already decided that if they aren’t perfect on the invites, we’re still sending them out, because 1) I highly doubt any of our guest will notice since they don’t know what it’s supposed to look like anyways and 2) I think it adds even more character to the invites! Below are the items that I used during the practice run, and picture steps of the process:




Products
Pigment stamp ink - White
Embossing powder – Green
Custom flourish stamp
Paper (will be linen paper when it comes time to do our real invites)
Cardstock- bent (used to collect the excess powder)
Small paint brush (optional)
Embossing Heat tool

After printing out the invitation wording, I stamped it with white ink (kinda hard to see here) on top of the extra cardstock




Once stamped, I sprinkled the embossing powder all over it (make sure to get all of the stamp area)



Lift up the paper and let the excess powder fall onto cardstock




I brushed off the little bit of powder that remained around the flourish. I found that bending the cardstock made it easier to put back into the jar.

Turn on the heat tool and wave it around making sure not to stay in one spot because that could burn the paper




After a couple seconds you will see that the powder is becoming thin and then hardens (embossed)

And there you have it, the finished product! I think the blurriness adds to the embossing in this picture.




To make the most out of the heat gun, we'll be embossing the same flourish on our save the dates and some other paper products for the reception.

Have you made any purchases from Etsy?  If you have, isn't it awesome?