Welcome to class 4 of our Card Making 201 series! Today, we’re turning up the heat to explore my all-time favorite card making technique. Heat embossing is a simple yet impactful technique that uses heat to create raised, glossy designs on your handmade cards. To get started, you’ll need embossing ink, embossing powder, and a heat gun. Heat embossing is one of the easiest ways to add a “wow” factor to your cards, and it’s as fun to do as it is stunning to see!
In class 4 of our Card Making 201 series, we’re going to learn:
- About the essential tools for heat embossing
- How to heat emboss with white embossing powder
- How to heat emboss colored images with clear embossing powder
Want to learn more easy techniques to improve your card making? CLICK HERE for our full Card Making 201 series, where we introduce simple techniques and fun new tools to make your handmade cards stand out.
Card Making 201, Class 4
In this video class, I (Jackie, an experienced card maker) teach Jesi (my daughter, a beginner card maker) how to heat emboss sentiments and images for her handmade cards. We hope that if you’re also a beginner card maker you can learn alongside Jesi and build your knowledge and confidence as she does.
There’s a lot more information shared in the video class than what’s written below. So make sure to give it a watch to learn everything you need to know to heat emboss confidently!
Essential Tools & Heat Emboss Card Details
To heat emboss an image or sentiment on your handmade card you need to have embossing ink, embossing powder, and a heat gun. In addition to these three items, I highly recommend having the embossing additions tool kit. This kit includes an embossing buddy, tweezers, a tray, and a brush – which is all super helpful to keep your embossing project easy and clean. The purpose of each item for heat embossing is:
- Embossing Ink (VersaMark): A clear, sticky ink that dries slowly so the embossing powder can stick to it.
- Embossing Powder: A fine powder that will result in a raised, textured, and glossy finish after being melted.
- Heat Gun: To melt the embossing powder.
- Embossing Buddy: A small pouch of powder to rub over your cardstock before inking to ensure the embossing powder doesn’t stick where it’s not supposed to.
- Tweezers: Hold your cardstock to keep your fingers away from the heat.
- Tray & Brush: The tray will catch excess embossing powder and use the brush to funnel it back into its container.
In the video class, we heat embossed two different ways. First, we heat embossed with white embossing powder on Basic Black cardstock. This is my favorite way to add sentiments to my handmade cards – I love the look of it! Next, we heat embossed using colored ink and clear embossing powder. This is a simple technique that adds unique dimension to your cards. Make sure to watch the video class for all the easy tips on how to do this!
For this happy birthday card, we also used our VersaMark pad for tone-on-tone stamping to add the leaves to the card base, which we learned about in Class 2 of Card Making 101.
Card Measurements:
- Basic Beige Card Base: 8 1/4″ x 5 1/2″, score at 4 1/4″
- Basic Black: 3 1/8″ x 3 1/8″
- Basic White: 3″ x 3″
CLICK HERE for my full supply list to make these heat embossed cards.
The steps for heat embossing (using a colored powder) are:
- Rub the embossing buddy on the cardstock that you will creating on.
- Stamp your sentiment or image using the VersaMark pad.
- Quickly pour the embossing powder over the stamped image, over top of the tray. This needs to be done quickly to ensure the ink doesn’t dry before the powder can stick to it.
- Tap off the excess powder.
- Brush out the excess powder back into its container. (Watch the video for my hard-learned lessons on why this step is so important!)
- Turn on the heat gun, let it warm up, then move it back and forth over your image. You need to move around to ensure you don’t burn the cardstock. It may take a little bit for the embossing powder melts, but be patient – you’ll notice when it happens. When it’s done it’s done – don’t over heat it!
- Add your embossed image to your card!
If you want to heat emboss a colored image with clear embossing powder, the only difference in the process is that you ink your stamp in the VersaMark pad first, then ink it in the colored ink pad. The VersaMark will will make the image sticky for the powder to stick to, and it will not harm your colored ink pad.
And because we love to share card examples, here’s another idea – using both white and clear embossing powder!
Card Measurements:
- Crumb Cake Card Base: 8 1/4″ x 5 1/2″, score at 4 1/4″
- Designer Series Paper: 4 1/4″ x 5 1/2″
- Early Espresso: 2 1/8″ x 5 1/8″
- Basic White: 2″ x 5″
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