Little Man-Embossing Velvet

I love this picture of my nephew. It was his first day of preschool this year and it amazed me at the difference between this year's 1st day photo and last year's. He's grown up so much! He's no baby anymore, he's such a little man now.

When working with this layout, I used a blue velvet as a double mat behind the photo. I wanted to add a little something and decided I wanted to emboss the velvet. I'd done it before when I taught a fall class and I had loved the effect. It's hard to see it in this photo, but there are step by step photos to follow.

All you need is velvet, a rubber stamp (clear will NOT work), and an iron with the steam off. Place the stamp image up, velvet side down over the image. Place the iron on top and gently rub, it only takes about 15-20 seconds to get a deep image. If you leave the iron on too long it will melt the velvet.

Lift the velvet carefully to check the image, if it's not deep enough you can place it right back down and add a little more heat.

Here's the finished product. I just kept emobssing the same image, rotating it each time so it sort of flowed down the page. It's a little more florally than I would normally use on a boy's page, but it was perfect for this technique.