Here we are at another Wednesday and time to join in with What's On Your Desk over at the Stamping Ground where Julia is host to the week's biggest blog hop - click on the WOYWW to join in and snoop around desks from all over the world.
However, I'm not here, or at least I won't be for the best part of the day - two hospital appointments in one day will be keeping me away. And so, I won't be able to visit many of you until much later, possibly not until tomorrow. Because of this, I almost decided not to participate this week but a few of you were interested in the wax embossing technique and I have a lot of photos to show you - be warned, this is a photo-heavy post.
First the desk.
Inked waxed embossed card - lots of it. I've had a great time trying out different combinations of inks ... Tim Holtz's, Adirondacks, Big and Juicies - I got them all out!
What you need for the technique is: waxed paper (sourced from The Fruit Pixie); embossing folders; an embossing machine - for me, that's my Cuttlebug, but any other would do; a dry iron - a steam iron with no water in would do just as well; white cardstock - try various weights and finishes for different effects; copy paper; your chosen ink pads and a means of application, e.g. cut and dry; and finally a craft mat to protect your worktop.
The technique:
1. Cut wax paper to fit a folder and emboss exactly the same way as you would emboss any card or paper.
2. Heat the iron, to very hot, as hot as you can get it, and remember, no steam, ready for the next step
3. On the craft mat sandwich the embossed wax paper between two pieces of card cut to size
4. Place a sheet of copy paper over the top of the sandwich
5. Press the hot iron down on to the top of the sandwich using as much pressure as you can muster. Be careful not to displace the layers of the sandwich at this point.
6. Remove iron, copy paper and wax paper - your card is now ready for inking
7. Reveal the pattern by inking - the wax acts as a resist.
8. After inking, polish with a soft cloth or tissue to remove any ink that is lying on top of the waxed areas
I did discover that if the embossing folder has writing or numbers on it, there will only be one useful imprint. Proving the point, here's my deliberate mistake :)
This is Tim Holtz Alterations Clocks embossing folder - on the left the numbers are correct, on the right they are reversed.
I discovered too that the embossed images can be quite subtle depending on the make of folder - experimenting with the embossing machine sandwich and shims might make a difference - I'd try that next time. Also, I did try out a mask but was a bit disappointed with the impression - again, I think trying different shims would help. However, here's a selection of the cards I've made with the card so far.
There's a lot of snippets been used up in the making of these cards so I'll be popping over to Di's Sunday Snippets #33 again - twice in one day!!
I hope that you might give this technique a try yourself and, if you do, I'd love to see how you get on with it.
I hope you all have a great day and I will visit as many of you as I can, whenever I can ... bear with me, I might be just a tad slower getting round than even is my usual.
Happy WOYWW,
