It’s our final dry embossing day! I thought I’d show you how to use your wafer thin dies to emboss, rather than cut – use them for double duty and really get your money’s worth!

You will need:

A die cutting/embossing machine, wafer thin dies (eg: Spellbinders, Hero Arts, Papertrey Ink, etc.), and a tag.

First, line up the die on your paper, cutting edge facing up. Next, I find it easiest to adhere the die to the paper. I normally use washi tape as it is low tack and there’s no problem removing it once the die has been run through your machine. I temporarily adhere it so it doesn’t move and I can be sure it will emboss right where I want it to!

Next, make your sandwich – for the Cuttlebug I use the A plate, B plate, then a piece of cardstock as a shim (and you can then get a die cut piece at the same time as you’re embossing!):

Then put your paper with the die facedown so the cutting edges go into the cardstock shim.

Over that goes a rubber mat and another B plate. If you want a really deep impression, you may want to use another thin shim for more pressure. Just be sure not to make the sandwich too thick or it won’t go through your machine.

After you roll it through, you get this:

Nicely embossed! I happened to use an open die here to get a frame, but you can use solid dies as well, and you can deboss if you prefer, just flip your paper over!

I like the subtlety of this embossing, and how it picks up ink really well to make it stand out more while still not being super dimensional. Excellent for cards you’re going to mail because they won’t be too bulky.

In the same vein, you can also use stencils and chipboard to emboss. I won’t cover those since they are very similar to what I did here today but if you want to see those in action check here and here. I used the stencil technique on the smaller red heart for my finished tag:

As always, leave me a link in the comments if you try this technique out – I’d love to see how you use dies for embossing!

S.