Embossing Workshop

This morning I had an embossing workshop, I signed up to this as I think it would be extremely appropriate for the production of my book. Embossing gives a rich yet minimal aesthetic which is what I am aiming for throughout my publication. I found the embossing workshop to be one the most enjoyable ones that I have done at uni so far.

In the induction we were able to create our own little embossed sheets using materials such as cardboard, rubber bands, loose card and paper cut outs, fabric etc. When embossing, the materials used can't be too thick or sharp, e.g. a button or a coin.

Embossing steps;

• Prepare your paper; you can either use cartridge paper or handmade paper, personally I prefer handmade paper and I thought it gave me better results
• Dip your paper into water and leave for a few minutes
• Use a thin cardboard (we used cereal boxes) to cut your pattern/letters into. This is the pattern that will be embossed. OR you can create your pattern just using the materials; without cutting a stencil.
• Dry off the paper: wedge it between bigger pieces of paper and then roll on top so the water is absorbed by the bigger papers
• Lift the blanket on the roller up
• Lay a sheet of tissue paper down
• Lay your stencil/materials on top of the tissue paper in the layout you would like your paper to be embossed
• Lay another sheet of tissue paper on top
• Lay your prepared paper on top of the tissue paper
• Add your last layer of tissue paper on top of the normal paper
• Put blanket back on top and roll through the press- its quite useful to put the design through the roller a couple of times incase it doesn't emboss deep enough the first time.

An example shown at the workshop

Materials and more examples

Stencil that I made myself using craft knife and cardboard

The embossed result using my stencil,
for this I used handmade paper

Embossed sheet using lose materials and scraps
(cartridge paper)

De-bossed sheet (the other side of the embossed)