Parchment Craft - An Introduction to Embossing

Here is my finished version of the pattern ... View

Download and print your pattern - this one is from www.mettemusen.dk

Choose either a sharp white pencil or if you prefer, white ink (mine is a gel pen). For this example I will use the white pencil.

Trace all of the outlines.

Turn the work if necessary to get a better angle for your hand to make smooth strokes while tracing.

This also helps keep your hand off the piece of parchment as much as possible. Always have VERY clean hands and often it is best to put a clean piece of paper between your hand and the parchment when you can't avoid resting your hand on part of the work.

The traced flower when turned over.

Rub a piece of wax paper or a dryer sheet over the area to be embossed (on the back of the work).

Choose either a small ball embosser or a fine stylus/scriber.

On the back (where you have waxed) emboss the pencil outlines of the petals (not the top).

Don't emboss around the top of the flower. Instead, using the small ball tool and a light pressure, emboss dots all over the centre of the daisy. Concentrate the dots more heavily near the petals in the centre.

Turn to the right side and rub out the pencil lines.

Choose a shading tool. The PCA Soft Shader shown on the left is fabulous for achieving light, even shading on larger areas. The Pergamano Hockey Stick in the centre can also produce soft even shading (as will the PCA Shader which is like the Soft Shader but has a narrower wire loop - I now use the PCA Shader in preference to the Hockey Stick - much easier!!). The small and medium ball embossers can be used to emboss very small areas.

For this daisy I chose to use the Hockey Stick - this is due to the narrow shape of the petals.

Always emboss towards yourself. To emboss the petals turn the work so that the tip of the petal is furthest away from you.

 Place your shader so that it is touching the end of the petal (inside the lines of course) and with a very light pressure drag the shader towards yourself (towards the centre of the petal).

Don't shade all the way in to the centre - we want the shading to fade to nothing in the centre. This is where the petal would be in shadow - the darkest part of the petal and therefore the part with no embossing/shading at all.

This shows how softly you need to emboss - this is the result of dragging the shader (hockey stick) from the tip of the petal inwards 6 times.

This is the result of 20 more strokes of shading.

Don't shade one narrow strip at a time - evenly spread the shading strokes across the whole area being shaded in a "layering" technique.

Another 20+ strokes later.

This is right side up. You can see how the embossed areas are slightly raised.

Now I am embossing with a slightly heavier stroke. You can press a LITTLE harder once the whole area has been embossed a few times as the fibres of the parchment have been evenly relaxed.

Not TOO hard though! You can still make it lumpy at this stage!

On the right side the end of the petal is looking much whiter.

Next choose the small ball embosser to "fill in" near the edges of the petal. We don't want any line visible between the edge and main parts of the petal.

Okay! We've done one petal! No lumps, no streaks, nice and white at the end, fading to nothing in the centre.

Off you go and do the rest now!

I've done another with what I think of as the "Dorothy Holness Realistic Flower Embossing" technique. :) For that we won't emboss the outline of the flower at all. Click here to view. I hope it helps all the budding parchers out there!!

Cheers

Robyn.

On review I think we need to use the small ball embosser a bit more and get rid of the grey line near the edges of 2 petals.

That's a bit better.

You can purchase 6 of my original parchment patterns with step by step instructions for only AU$3! Click here.