Like an [Em]Boss

I’m gearing up for a little party I’m having at my house to welcome spring with my friends, and I thought it might be fun to send real, printed invitations. Not a facebook invite. Not an Evite. An invitation that comes to you in the mail.

I thought I would go ahead an NOT put my full address on the internet.

I wanted them to feel special, but I didn’t want them to feel overdone since it’s just brunch, so I skipped papercraft and went right for some embossing. Do you know how to do this? I’m self-taught and this whole project, including hand-writing all the invitations, took me under 90 minutes and isn’t expensive.Step one, you go to your craft store. I’m in love with Paper Source, but you just do what feels right. Pick out a stamp or two (or seven) that you like, get some decent paper (this won’t work on copy paper very well), and your embossing materials. A word on this: it’s not pricey, and if you’re anxious, like me, just buy the Martha Stewart kit so you know you have all the pieces in hand. You’ll need the embossing gun, the embossing powder, and the embossing ink.

There are two routes to go on that last part. The first is colored powder and a neutral ink, and the second is colored ink and neutral powder. Don’t let people sell you on the second; your colors will be better with the first. I really like metallics for these projects, but any color will work.

Set up your area. Embossing powder gets everywhere, so lay down newspaper. I like to do smaller projects in the confines of an old shoebox, just to keep it tidy. All these little steps help you save your powder to use again later.

So you stamp the stamp down into the ink, then ink the paper. It’ll be hard to see, but you’ll know. If you want to just do a watermark, ignore the next few steps.

Next, you dump a bunch of that powder allllll over the area. Just really fleabomb it.

Tap, tap, tap, tap all the excess off onto some kinda surface, and do this with a quickness. Tap again and again to make sure there aren’t little residual particles hanging on.

Now, watermarkers, please rejoin the class. Everyone get yer gun and slowly slowly go over the powdered stamp area. The powder glimmers and shifts and begins to make a solid, raised line along the contours of the stamp.

That is it. You’re finished. Collect the loose powder, and siphon it back into the powder section.

Just write your invite in and you’re ready!

A side note to shortcutters: you cannot use a hairdryer for this. I know it sounds like a hairdryer when you turn it on. It is n’t a hairdryer. These little guns get up to 600 degrees immediately, and your hairdryer tops out between 180-200, unless you’re really using some industrial strength stuff. Just invest in the $18 dollar Martha one and be done. No whining.

So do you like them? Are you envious of my brunch party? Do you, too, yearn for written invitations? What would you have done? Tell me in the comments!