You can buy sheets of metal by various companies for stamping onto, I used the ‘Metal Quilting’ metal by Comotion.

Traditionally you stamp in on and then use a stylus tool to add dimension to the metal.

This variation of the technique looks good, but I wanted to achieve a more traditional embossed metal effect like that what you see on real metals and tins, and so this idea was born!

What You Will Need

Sheet of Metal used for Stamping Onto (I used ‘Metal Quilting by Comotion’) Scissors
Scotch Tape or Masking Tape
Stained Glass Style Rubber Stamp
Rubber Brayer
Stylus Embossing Tool:
Ideally you need 2 sizes: one with a fine ball end and one with a bigger ball end

Single Hole Punch, or a darning needle to pierce a hole.
Eyelets or brads to attach your metal embossed art to your card blank
Double Sided Tape or Glue
Black card, Papers for layering and Card Blank

How To Create:

1. First of all you need a stained glass style rubber stamp, one that doesn’t have a lot of fine lines and detail on it. I used stamps by ‘Carolines’ a UK rubber stamp company (http://carolinesrubberstamps.com/)

2. Place your stamp onto the sheet of metal, using the scissors cut a piece of metal sheeting slightly bigger than the wooden handle of your stamp. You need perfectly un dented and straight metal sheeting, so if it is dented you can now flatten it out again using your rubber brayer.

3. Place your stamp onto your work surface rubber side up, next you need 4 pieces of masking or scotch tape, you are going to temporarily stick the metal down over the top of the rubber die with the tape. The tape can be secured onto the wooden handle of your rubber stamp to hold the metal in place.

4. Take your rubber brayer, and firmly rub over the top of the metal which you have just stuck down on your stamp. You will need to do this several times, in each direction. As you do this you will notice the outlines of the rubber stamp become more and more visible in the metal, almost as if they have been embossed!

5. Take up your smaller ball ended embossing tool, using the lines in the metal to guide you, gently outline within the lines so that you get the basic shape of your rubber stamped outline. Do not worry about damaging your stamp as you are pressing into the part of the stamp where there is no rubber design to damage!

6. Once you have outlined your design you can now add texture by hammering and embossing!

In the traditional metal embossing craft, the metal sheets where so tough you had to use a hammer and chisel type tool to create a ‘hammered’ effect. Since the metal which is used for stamping is much thinner we can hammer with our big ball stylus too! To do this simply tap in and up and down motion within the lines you have just outlined to create a hammered effect.

You can also emboss the metal, again this is done within the outlines you have drawn and it is similar to embossing onto parchment paper and vellum, only metal is a little thicker. Simply rub your tool within the lines to press the foil inwards.

The embossing and the hammering can be alternated around the image to create a pattern. If you look at the card I created above you can see how I used both these to create texture and patterns.

7. Once you have finished hammering and embossing, remove the metal from the stamp carefully, and peel off the tape. Using either ordinary scissors or craft scissors cut around your design to trim it.

8. Next I punched holes in each of the four corners using a hole puncher, and used either eyelets or paper brads to attach the embossed metal to a piece of black card stock. I chose black card because it enhanced the metallic colours more prominently. If you don’t have a hole puncher you can use a darning needle to pierce holes instead.

9. Crop around your black card if needed, and layer it onto background papers, I used handmade papers, with double sided tape, finally mount onto a card blank to finish.

More Tips For Metal

De-bossing and Embossing

You can attach the metal to the card using either sides of the metal, if you look at both sides of your design you will notice that one side is ’embossed’ and the other side ‘de-bossed’. I created cards using both sides of the metal as you can see from the cards below:

Embossed Metal:

De-Bossed Metal:

Metal Alternatives

Don’t have any metal quilting sheets? Use the leftover empty tubes from your tomato puree and garlic paste! Or left over foil tins from pies!

Colour Metal Sheets

Want metal sheets in different colours? No need to pay out for different colours, you can change the colour of silver metal yourself by colouring with glass paints, or ‘Overhead Projection Pens’ which are used for writing on acetate.

Box Lids

This technique would look especially good attached onto the lids of wooden boxes.

This Project Is Dedicated To Princess Georgina; who has gone to the plot in the sky. Sleep tight angel.