It was late last Thursday night that I finally got a chance to sit down, decompress and simply relax, take a little much needed “me” time and reflect on the crazy week past and plan for what was still to come with NiCasa.  I was giddy with excitement and fully ready in my comfy clothes as I closed my eyes and took a deep breath in.  It was about then, on breath out, that my state of peace and calm ended, lasting about a nanosecond.  Business cards suddenly forced their way into my brain.  Business cards as in I had none, and after hearing from Nic and seeing for myself the inquiries from everyone who walked into her showroom about it’s design, I knew I would be blowing a huge opportunity if I didn’t have something with at least my name and number on it.  So I jumped on Vista Print and started to create generic business card and about 3 steps in I thought, what am I doing?  I can’t have the showroom hand over a blanket card that captures zero about me when I can make my own business cards that illustrate my DIY passion.  And so I did…for two very long nights.

For inspiration and the materials I headed to Paper Source, not the cheapest way to accomplish my papersource material goal but I needed them by Monday morning and I was shopping on a Saturday.  And I wasn’t trying to  create them in bulk as I haven’t finalized a logo yet and all the info right now is just my personal, so I thought I’d go for quality too.  And while I was at it I offered to whip some up for Brittnee and Nicole as well, they will be handing out dozens of cards and I figured this is just another way to get my name and services out there.

While wandering wide-eyed through Paper Source, it really is amazing what can be created from paper alone, one of the employees offered to give me a quick tutorial on heat embossing.  3 minutes later I was hooked — and walking out with a small fortune in one equally small bag.  But I have to say, it was well worth it, but that’s just me.  I’ll let you be the judge.  And if you want to do this yourself, it’s crazy easy but looks like you spent serious bucks!  If you can turn on a a heat gun and stamp a stamp, you’re in business!

Here’s what you need:

VesaMark Stamp Pad — it’s a sticky pad that isn’t ink, it’s how your embossing powder sticks to the design.

Embossing Powder – it comes in a rainbow of colors and also in shiny “metals”, like gold, silver, copper, platinum.

Heat Gun — I asked if this could be accomplished with a hair dryer and although they said no, I’m guessing yes IF you have an attachment that concentrates the heat.  And IF I can locate mine, I’ll give it a try and let you know.  But I’ve pretty much given up on hair dryers for the summer so finding the attachment is my challenge and I’m not making any promises.

Stamp(s) — any and all stamps will work, providing you know I’m not talking about mailing something.

Cards, paper, tags — whatever medium you are using to emboss on.  You can even buy printable business cards, like I did, and download the free templates to get some of the info you want printed on the card or you can stamp the whole thing and buy individual cards sold in packs.  It’s totally up to you!

And that takes care of getting the job done.  Optional but recommended is the tray.  It makes it super easy to clean up and get the powder back into the little jar but you will need multiple trays if you are doing multiple colors and that can add up  — especially if your designing on a dime.

But that’s pretty much it!  Add in a little creativity and imagination and a few trial runs and you are good to go!  Those are your 5 basic tools and now, here are the 5 basic steps.

1.  Download and print your cards (if that’s the route your taking).  Stamp your image or logo or text onto the card.

2.  Sprinkle on the embossing powder to cover the image, it will be visible and sticky

3.  Gently flip over the card to remove the excess powder and give it a few flicks to with our finger to define the lines  — you can even use a small paint brush to remove any unwanted powder.

4.  Get out the heat gun (my favorite part) and hold it 3 inches or so from the paper and heat the powder.  Do this for about 8-10 seconds.  You will see the powder change color and look almost wet.

5.  When the powder turns color you are done!  Give it another 10-15 seconds to dry fully and embellish away if you want.

If you want to keep going you can, you can use these really great and beyond fun pens to color in the image, they dry raised just like the embossing.  Or you can go back and emboss another section in a different color.  If you want to freehand something, you can purchase a double sided pen that acts like the sticky “ink”…the possibilities from here are truly endless.