• How to Heat Emboss

    I love using heat embossing to add zing to wedding RSVP envelopes! Learn how to heat emboss in this thorough tutorial.

    How to Heat Emboss | The Postman's Knock

    There are a lot of people out there who love stamping, and are very talented when it comes to that art form. To be perfectly honest, I am not usually one of those people. However, I have been working on a gold wedding suite for a beloved Georgia client, and after some Pinteresting I realized that heat embossing on RSVP envelopes would be the perfect way to efficiently {and beautifully!} put the client’s address on her RSVP envelopes.

    Before I delved into the world of heat embossing, I educated myself as far as what tools to use and how. This is the well-researched conquer-the-embossing-world combination I ended up with:

    How to Heat Emboss | The Postman's Knock

    You’ll notice a 3.5″x5″ custom address stamp there, which I designed to match the wedding suite. Then there’s an embossing ink pad, a heat gun, super fine detail gold embossing powder, the envelope to be embossed, and the foot of panty hose stuffed with baby powder.

    The foot of the panty hose stuffed with baby powder is actually pretty important. Its purpose is to remove static from the surface that you are going to heat emboss {in this case, the envelope}. You can read more about how to make a homemade anti-static bag here, but basically all you do is cut out the foot of an old pair of panty hose, pour baby powder inside, tie the hose shut, and voilà: you’re ready to do some serious static removal. You’ll simply rub the anti-static bag over the surface you are going to heat emboss, like so:

    How to Heat Emboss | The Postman's Knock

    And then you’ll put your ink on your stamp.

    How to Heat Emboss | The Postman's Knock

    Since my stamp is so large and my stamp pad is comparatively small, I am pressing the ink against the stamp like so:

    How to Heat Emboss | The Postman's Knock

    Next, you’ll press your stamp on the surface you wish to heat emboss. In my case, it is, of course, an RSVP envelope.

    How to Heat Emboss | The Postman's Knock

    Be sure you apply even pressure!

    How to Heat Emboss | The Postman's Knock

    Once you lift the stamp off the surface, you’ll have a very faded image like this. Do not touch it; it doesn’t dry quickly at all and will smudge if you do! On that note, you also shouldn’t fret about sprinkling embossing powder on the stamped surface ASAP. The ink takes a very long time to dry, and shouldn’t be un-usable for a few hours, at least.

    How to Heat Emboss | The Postman's Knock

    Next, you sprinkle the embossing powder on. I find that a spoon helps tremendously in this step.

    How to Heat Emboss | The Postman's Knock

    Just cover your surface with embossing powder. It’s a good idea to have a pliable piece of scrap paper underneath to catch the excess powder.

    How to Heat Emboss | The Postman's Knock

    Once you’ve put powder on the entire surface, gently shake the powder off onto your scarp paper. Fold the sides of the scrap paper in, and funnel/slide the excess powder back into its original container.

    How to Heat Emboss | The Postman's Knock

    Your image will look sort of like artificial holiday snow.

    How to Heat Emboss | The Postman's Knock

    Before you put heat to the embossing powder, you’ll want to gently brush off stray powder. The reason for this is that any random bits of powder will melt into the paper, which can distract from your design. Note that it’s possible to brush embossing powder off of where it has adhered to the embossing ink, so be careful to not let your brush touch your actual, intended design.

    How to Heat Emboss | The Postman's Knock

    Now, you’ll use your heat gun to melt the gold embossing powder! You’ll know when the embossing powder is “done” in a certain area; it melts into a beautiful, smooth gold. That’s when you concentrate on another area. The whole heating process takes seconds — probably 10-15 total for this envelope.

    How to Heat Emboss | The Postman's Knock

    Here’s the finished product!

    How to Heat Emboss | The Postman's Knock

    How to Heat Emboss | The Postman's Knock

    I absolutely love the way it looks with the RSVP card for this suite!

    How to Heat Emboss | The Postman's Knock

    If you have any questions or observations about heat embossing, drop me a line in the comments! Otherwise, I hope this post was inspirational to you — and if you’re looking for a simpler, more accessible tutorial about how to heat emboss, check out my gold polka dot envelope liners tutorial.

    XO, Lindsey | The Postman's Knock.