Letterpress Cards

I don't know if you've ever seen letter pressing but it has very intense coloring that is reverse embossed. I really love the look of it; so much so I researched buying the equipment but talked myself out of it. I just couldn't rationalize that I would take it into a business and we won't even go into the cost factor.

Ever since then I have been intrigued with finding ways to replicate the look. I almost purchased the Lifestyle Letterpress kit but after reading reviews determined that it need a revision 2 which never happened. I often wondered if embossing folders could be used but never tried it until now.

So I took just two types of ink to play with, Tim Holtz Distressed Ink and Papertrey Ink's craft ink. I then chose two folders. I only dabbed on the ink much as you would a stamp. I make typical 4.25 x 5.5 cards since you can get two from an 8.5 x 11 sheet of cardstock. However, I noticed that by daubing on the ink the smaller folders got a bit messy around the edges but the larger folder did not. As you can see below.

 

I reinked the embossing folder being a little more careful not to get the edges mess, I was a little more successful but still was not an even result.

 

Also using the same folder I inked the opposite side to see if the effect changed. Ironically they were very subtle differences given the pattern of the folder

 

And here are the end results after trimming down the geometric patters to clean up the edges.

 

 I am also sneaking in a challenge for Simon Says Stamps using glitter cardstock on the Hello card for their "shiny" challenge and a couple of jewels on the Yay card as well as glass stars on the birthday card below.

 

And using the larger folder as the base of the card, you really could stretch your supplies and make your own pattern or rather embossed pattern paper using inks and embossing folders.