Triple Embossing and Intaglio

Hi everyone. I hope you are enjoying a crafty weekend or looking for inspiration to get your mojo fired up! Sometimes when I’m lost for ideas, a quick scan through my many magazines will provide me with renewed inspiration. In this way,  I love to rediscover old techniques like this one: Triple embossing and the Intaglio technique. I offered a project using these techniques to Sally Stirling (Jarvis) at ‘ Making Cards and Papercraft’ as part of her regular ‘Techniques’ section and it was accepted in this month’s edition (October). I find it so exciting to find my projects in print.

I love triple embossing. There are various craft retailers promoting their own resins and of course there are numerous glazes on the market but, for me, I love seeing the finished result of various layers of embossing on a stamped image. I describe the very simple steps, with photos, in this month’s magazine. If you’ve forgotten or would just like more ideas I would encourage you to buy this lovely magazine. I’ve mainly used a selection of Crafty Individuals stamps for this project but I’ve also included the mini ‘Jane’ face from Indigo Blu.

This photo demonstrates the three layers of Triple embossing quite well. After heating the first layer of embossing powder - I used WOW superfine clear gloss embossing powder and a clear embossing pad - you tend to get a rather bumpy layer. The second layer ( just repeating the process) produces a smoother layer but it’s the third layer that creates the magic. I love it every time.

Hopefully, this photo shows the difference in the layers a little more clearly. I’ve stamped with a Black Versafine ink pad in this image but it’s also great fun to vary your inks to produce multiple images:

Once I had triple embossed a number of images I then mounted them up with complementary background papers to create some birthday/greeting cards. Again, you can see more of these in the magazine.

Crafty Individuals produce some gorgeous background papers which I used for many of the cards I made. 

The next technique that I demonstrate in this month’s magazine is the ‘Intaglio’ technique. This is where you press a stamp image into the heated embossing powders while they are still hot. This creates an ‘indentation’ into the hot embossing paste which lies beneath the surface. When you play around with different colour ink pads and various shades of embossing powders you can produce some wonderful effects. Again, the magazine article shows the steps to achieving this very clearly with close up photos. 

These background stamps are great examples of this technique. The image on the left has been stamped into with a clear embossing pad. The image on the right has been stamped into with a black Versafine Clair ink pad. Both were stamped into embossing powders that had included different coloured WOW powders as well as Ultra thick embossing powders. I stamped into the molten powders when they were still hot. These produce such pretty tiles, especially if you add glitters, beads and findings into the last layer as you heat it. 

I hope that this blog post together with the magazine article has inspired you to have a go at both techniques yourselves! Until next time....