Adventures in Embossing

Now that you've already seen the design, there's no reason not to use full disclosure...

I finished my Save the Dates today - all 99 of them! (There should have been 100, but we had a goof.) :) Actually, once I figured out the embossing part, it was fairly painless. Now all I have to do is address and mail them. For those of you who don't live here, the Chicago post office system is no bueno for mass mailings. I will be venturing out to the suburbs to mail them, since I actually care about whether they get to their destination!

Here we go... This was my spot for most of the weekend:

After creating the design in Word using text boxes and the array of free fonts available on dafont.com, I decided to emboss the main "Save the Date" on the front of the card. I DID decide to go with the blue. :) I lined them up on my makeshift table and worked in batches.

Here is the first thing to know about embossing: Use Pigment Inkpads. Maybe because I am a stamping novice, I didn't realize that inkpads come in a few different types, mostly as pigment pads or dye pads. Dye pads dry more quickly, using less excess ink. Pigment pads are thicker, dry more slowly, and are excellent for embossing. If you use a dye pad, you'll get this:

So once I figured out that dye pads were my problem, I remedied the situation with a pigment pad. For my stamp, I used an alphabet clear stamp set. Clear stamps are polymer stamps that affix to a clear acrylic block in whatever arrangement you choose. Though their stamped images can turn out less defined than wooden stamps, they work well when you need exact placement or custom stamping arrangements.

After I lined up a batch of cards to stamp, I individually stamped and then immediately dumped a TON of embossing powder over the ink. Embossing powder is not so cheap, (that 4 oz. container you see in the background of the picture cost $10) but it went surprisingly far. After I was done with the entire project, only a little bit was actually used.

After the "hills of powder," I tapped off the excess powder onto a sheet of paper that I then fed back into the original container. You are then left with this:

The fun part is using the embossing gun, which sounds scarier than it is. Once the gun is plugged in and turned on, it sends out a steady stream of hot, hot air, which melts the embossing powder...

...and creates a raised surface that is the color of the ink you stamped below.

Then, if you want to, you can use a corner rounder. I picked a model with a comfortable thumb grip, as I have many rounded corners in my future!!!

Here's something to know... An advantage to postcards are that they are definitely cheaper to mail than enveloped Save-the-Dates, however, you need to pay attention to the size of your card, as anything over 6"x4.25" costs $0.42, whereas under that only costs $0.27. Very important! This week will be spent addressing, then mailing from the 'burbs this weekend (if the stars align!) I'll let you know how my post office visit goes!

Somebody needs powder on her FACE! I hope this helps you on your own embossing adventures!