Embossing: Do It YOUR Way!

I think embossing folders can really add style to a card.  The trouble is, you can't always find an embossing folder that has exactly what you might have in mind.  I had been wishing for a butterfly embossing folder for quite some time.  I love butterflies on cards.  You may have noticed that as you've looked through some of my projects.

Lately there have been a number of stampers adding their own "embossing" to cards and I thought, why shouldn't I try that?  So I did!  The trick is to make an "embossing folder" out of punched out shapes.

 I own quite a number of butterfly dies as well as a butterfly punch, so there were a lot of butterflies at my disposal.  I knew that if I was going to make my own "embossing folder" I would have to make butterflies out of an extremely hard cardboard.  Anything slightly soft would wind up giving an extremely soft impression when rolled through the Big Shot.  I found an extremely stiff, very compressed piece of cardboard that is perhaps half again as thick as a piece of Stampin' Up cardstock.  I knew the Bigz dies could manage the material without problems but one of my favourite butterfly dies, the Beautiful Wings folder, would probably split apart attempting it.

Well, I cut a couple of butterflies using the Beautiful Butterflies die and another using the Butterfly Punch.  But I wanted some of the sizes and shapes from the Beautiful Wings folder as well and managed that by cutting two sets from cardstock and then gluing the matching cardstock pieces together.  That brought them up to approximately the density of the other butterfly shapes.

I had a spare cutting pad and used the Dotto to keep the butterfly shapes in place on that.

Having put together my "embossing folder", I decided to try it out on a piece of Very Vanilla.  My sandwich was as follows:  Multipurpose platform on Tab 1, my "embossing folder" with the butterflies facing upwards, the Very Vanilla cardstock, a standard Texturz silicone rubber mat, a standard cutting pad.  Then I rolled it through the Big Shot and checked the results.

I loved it!  The butterfly shapes were very visible.  The best embossing was done with the super-dense cardboard shapes but the double-cardstock embossing wasn't bad, either, just a little softer.  Overall, I was very happy with the results.

I used a butterfly stamp from the Butterfly Prints to add Marina Mist to the one butterfly shape cut with the Butterfly Punch.  I added a butterfly made with the Beautiful Butterflies Bigz die and embossed with the Flower Garden embossing folder.  Then I added the sentiment from the Butterfly Prints set, stamped in Marina Mist ink.

A bit of shading around the edge of the Labels Collection shape with Marina Mist ink and a sponge, a bit of "bling" in the way of those wonderful Pearls, and the card is complete.  The embossed butterflies make a perfect addition to the stamped and 3-D butterflies.

So now you, too, can make an "embossing folder" from any shape you can imagine.  Isn't that fun?