Metal Embossing Tips

by Annie Wheatcraft (Oct 9, 2002)

Metal embellishments are very popular in scrapbooking. One metal product finding its way onto our scrapbook pages is sheet metal. Sheet metal comes in gold, silver and copper and many colors. It is available in a variety of weights. Light to medium weight metal sheets work well for scrapbooking because they are easy to emboss and cut.

You’ll need a few basic tools to work with metals sheets. Here is a list of the basics:

A good pair of scissors designed for metal. DON'T use your regular scissors. They may end up dull, dull, dull. Scissor blades can be made up of different blends of metals. Some dull easily others will do o.k. The ones I use are by Fiskars and are full size scissors (bent handle squeeze scissors similar to the little ones I use for scrapbooking). I also use a pair of $2.00 scissors I got at WalMart.

A mouse pad works well for a soft surface to emboss on. I have also used a sheet of fun foam.

An embossing stylus. I like the “old fashioned” kind that is just a metal stick with a ball end.

OPTIONAL: a zinc chloride pen. A combination of zinc chloride and heat will give metal sheeting an antiqued look.

There are many places that you can find patterns to use when embossing your metals sheeting. Try using simple clip art pictures as templates. Print out a design and use hermafix dot adhesive to attach it to the top of the metal sheet so it won't slip. Then trace around all outlines. I do this part on a sheet of cardboard so I don't have too much indention. The softer the surface you have under your metal the easier it is to slip out of the design. After I trace the shapes, I take off the clip art picture and place the metal on the fun foam. Then you can easily re-emboss it using the lines you traced. After tracing all lines, place the piece right side up on a harder surface and carefully run your stylus along the edges of the embossed areas. It gives added clarity to your design and just "cleans it up" a bit.

Stamps with simple designs or geometric shapes also make great patterns for metal embossing. Using embossing ink (I like it because it will stay wet and you can wipe it back off.) stamp onto the metal. Then lay the metal on cardboard and trace the outlines of the stamped design. After tracing, take a tissue and gently wipe off excess ink. Then place the metal piece on fun foam and emboss the design. You can turn the piece over and emboss on the right side to “clean up” the design as described above.

Another way to add a design to metal sheeting is to freehand it. Freehanding is an easy way to play with the metal and get used to the "feel" of working with it. Cut a strip of metal about 1 to 1.5 inches wide. Cut enough strips so that you have enough to reach across your page and make a border. Cut the strips into random lengths. make some shorter and some longer. Emboss random geometric shapes into the lengths of metal. Try making spirals, circles, dots, horizontal, diagonal, or vertical lines, plaids... Use the edge of a ruler to help you get lines straight. Piece the lengths together to form a border on your page. Add some metal to your title or another page element to add visual balance to your page.

Punches also work well with light weight sheet metal. Punch out your shapes just like when using cardstock and adhere to your page. Some metal sheets are self-adhesive (very handy!) but if you can't find that type use double sided tape super sticky tape. Pop dots also work well for adhering metal.

A few more quick tips:

Add a stippled texture to your metals sheeting by tapping it with the end of your embossing stylus or by tapping (lightly!) with a metal meat tenderizer.

Colored metal adds festive shine to your pages. Check out Once Upon a Scribble's wide variety of colors! It works well for both embossing and punching. On some colored metals you can use nail polish remover to take off some of the color and give the metal an aged look.

Print out text in an interesting font. Turn the printed text face down and trace the words onto a metal sheet. When you flip the metal over your words will be beautifully embossed.