Adhesive Embossed Letters

Submitted by rockester on May 20, 2002 - 22:00

Here is a new way to use your hand lettering or computer fonts! This is a simple way to dress up some of those titles and fonts and give them a little sparkle. The procedure takes only about 5 to 10 minutes and it can help you create great page toppers or accent letters. I can't wait to share this simple technique with you!

Materials

You will nee the following items:

  • A double sided roll on style adhesive such as "Easy Stick" from Walmart, Hermafix Dots, 3m roll on adhesive, or any other brand that lays down a controlled thin layer of adhesive with a straight edge on both sides. (I use Easy Stick as shown in my illustrations and it can be found at Walmart, Office Max, Staples, and online as well as other local stores in the office supply aisle. It is acid free.)
  • light colored cardstock to computer print or draw the letter shapes onto.
  • Embossing powder (heat activated) or a fine grain glitter
    (I use rubber stamping supply store sources and consultants for these.)
  • a heat gun
  • A computer font like CK "Fill In" font --or any font that has a block side to it with straight edges.
    (The Fill In font from CK can be seen in my examples and is from the CK Lettering cds purchased from the Creating Keepsakes magazine website.)

  • optional- fine paint brush
  • optional- glue pen

That's it! just those five items will give us great page toppers! Let's get to the table and make some!

Step One
Select your font. I used CK "Fill In" font because it has nice straight lines on the sides of the fill boxes on each letter. Make sure the font is sized correctly for the width of your adhesive. Size 100 works with 3/8 inch wide adhesive. Check this sizing by printing out a sample page of your title on computer paper and trying the adhesive in the "fill box" on the lettering.
Step Two
Print out the page title onto plain cardstock. You can also hand draw your lettering if you are good at that. Be sure to match the sizing on the FILL IN block of the letters to the width of the adhesive you are using. My Easy Stick adhesive strip is 3/8 inch wide so I made my title with fill boxes exactly that 3/8 inch wide too. Again, this worked out to be a font size of 100. If you have a narrower adhesive, make your fill in font smaller to compensate.
Step Three
Carefully drag your adhesive into the fill in block of the letters. Be sure the adhesive is filling the block at top and bottom and has a fairly clean start and stop line. If you run over a tiny bit, we can fix that in a moment. This may take a letter or two to practice but it is fairly straightforward.
Step Four

Decide if you want embossing powder (red in my examples) or glitter (blue in my examples). Pour the powder or glitter onto the letters. The adhesive will hold the powder down.
Step Five
Pour off the excess heat embossing powder or glitter. At this point, brush off any excess (outside the lettering) with a fine paintbrush if needed.
Step Six
Check for areas that the adhesive went to far like at the top and the bottom. To fix these, just push the powder and adhesive with your fingernail gently until it is within the fill block again. Remember that wherever the embossing powder sits before heating will be where you have color after heating. So if you want to 'fix' anything about where the excess powder is sitting, do it now.

Another problem that may pop up is having an area at the base or the top of the letter where you stopped short and there is no adhesive. We will fix that in a moment--after heating up and setting this first layer.

Step Seven
Heat set the embossing powder with the heat gun. Be careful of course as the heat can be intense. If you chose glitter embellishing, do not heat set the glitter. It is not necessary. Once the layer of embossing powder is set and cool for about 10 seconds, take a look.
Step Eight
Do you need to touch up any areas that are missing powder? If so, take another pass at it with the adhesive or a glue pen. Pour on another bit of embossing powder. Heat again with the heat gun. That should fix it!
Wahhlaah! You are done with your heat-embossed fill lettering!

Once you master this simple adhesive and heat embossing technique, it is a great one to use for titles, accent letters, names, and even to decorate your journal boxes or photo mats. I can see this adhesive embossing as stripes on page backgrounds, a fancy border on a photo mat, or as a shimmery plaid accent block (See sample at top of page). Have fun with it!