Technique Tuesday – Partial Dry Embossing

Hi there

Last Saturday I held a workshop for a lovely group of ladies – we had a great afternoon crafting and here is one of the cards we made. It uses the partial dry embossing technique. This is where you dry emboss your cardstock front but leave an area free of the embossing to allow you to stamp an image or sentiment. Keep reading to find out how I did this.

When you first look at the card above I’m sure you thought this had a couple of layers – the dry embossed background, the coloured circle mat and then the plain circle with the sentiment stamped in the middle. Well the background and the stamped sentiment are all one layer and the ‘mat’ is just a thin circle edging layered over the top. To create this ‘ring’ I used the Layering Circles dies (6th & 7th biggest) nested together. The pansies are from the Pansy Patch Bundle and have been added on top of the Basic White layer.

To create the partial embossing first you need to make a ‘shim’ as in the picture on the far left. I die cut a circle from two pieces of scrap card board and taped them together. You could use any shape you want – it could even be done with a punch. Next place your cardstock in your chosen embossing folder. I used the new Checks & Dots Embossing Folder. Place the ‘shim’ on top of the embossing folder and run it through your die cutting machine. The pressure from the rollers will only transfer the indentations from the folder to the cardstock where the shim is directly touching the folder, leaving the ‘circle’ area flat and allowing you to stamp on this space.

I also made this same card design into a full sized card by adding an additional mat. The colours I used for my pansies were: Calypso Coral, Pale Papaya and Bumblebee; Melon Mambo, Polished Pink and Daffodil Delight; Gorgeous Grape, Highland Heather and Daffodil Delight (on the left hand card); Gorgeous Grape, Fresh Freesia, Rich Razzleberry and Daffodil Delight (notecard on right). The leaves are Evening Evergreen and Soft Succulent. The mat and sentiment are using Evening Evergreen.

This is a fun and easy technique to create that gives the impression of extra layers to your card. Have fun recreating this technique with dies and punches you have in your stash.

Until next time …