How to Make an Angel Card Using Embossing and Paper Cutting

Ever looked at those lovely glossy cards on store shelves and wished that you could make similar ones? Well, it's not too difficult. Some basic tools + your imagination = Great cards! Here's how!

1. Choose the colours you want to use. This example shows use of bronze and white papers for the card. You can vary the colours as per your requirement. Take a more than 160 grams per square meter weight paper (250 gsm paper is used in this example), preferably A4 sheet but you can really use any size you want. Fold it into half and decide which side you want to use as the front of the card.
   
   
2. Make guidelines on the back side of the front cover. In this case, guidelines are made 2.5 cm from the edge, leaving enough room for the design to be accommodated.
   
   
3. Stick the embossing pattern with scotch tape along the guiding lines. Don't use ordinary cello tape as it's hard to remove. Scotch tape comes off easily.
   
   
4. Take an embossing needle (as you can see in the picture here) and start outlining the pattern on the front cover, much like moving a pen around on a stencil.
   
   
   • Here is how it will look.
5. Outline the inner pattern after you're through with the outer pattern.
   
   
   • This is how it'll look after finishing.
6. Keeping the edge of the embossed pattern in mind, cut the bronze (or whichever colour you want) paper ribbon and paste it as shown.
   
   
   • Make one or two rectangles with this ribbon depending on your preference.
   • This is how it'll look after you're finished with pasting the ribbons.
7. Paste the second mold on the “outside” of the front cover (it's a positive embossing pattern). You can use a negative embossing pattern also. In that case, you need to paste it on the back side, much like the angel embossing pattern.
   
   
8. Start embossing with the needle on the reverse side. This is how it'll look from the back as you emboss.
   
   
   • After you're through with embossing, cut out the portions from in between and if you wish to, make a thin border cut.
     
     
9. Paste a bronze colour paper at the back to give it a matched look.
   
   
10. Use the same bronze colour paper, cut out flowers and paste them as shown.
    
    
    • This is a flower punch.
    • This is how it looks at the base.
    • This shows you how it punches a flower out of a paper.
11. Paste a white flower of a smaller size on top of the bronze flower. Using an ordinary paper punch, cut out two small circles of bronze paper and paste them at the centre of the white flower. And that's it. The card is ready!
    
    
12. Finished.
    
    

• Use contrasting colours to enhance the beauty of the card.
• For gifting to older people or for formal occasions like weddings, stick to muted colours like silver, bronze, copper, white, grey, black, brown etc.
• For gifting to younger people or for informal occasions, use more striking contrasts like blue + pink, green + red, yellow + violet, maroon + cream.
• If the edges of the paper ribbon don't match exactly, cover the joints with small decorative crystals or paper flowers
• Positive embossing pattern implies that the embossed area face the 'outer side' of the card. Negative embossing implies that the area 'left' by the embossing needle is on the outer side

• Be careful while cutting off the sections from the embossed paper.
• Keep cleaning your hands to avoid stains on light colour papers.
• After making the embossed patterns, avoid putting too much pressure on them as that may flatten the patterns.

• an embossing needle
• More than 160 grams per square meter (gsm) paper in two different colours (background and foreground colours)
• Paper ribbon of the background colour
• Scissors
• Paper cutter
• Embossing stencils
• Paper punches (of shapes of your choice, flower shape is used here)
• Scotch tape
• Resin glue