YOJ Week 25 - The Embossed Cuff

Last week I borrowed a Cuttlebug embosser, aka the poor man's rolling mill from my friend Jenny and did a little experimenting. If you are unfamiliar with an embosser, it sort of works like a pasta machine, but instead of pasta, you imprint paper or thin ga. metals with it.

Although the impressions are not as sharp as with a rolling mill, at a fraction of the cost, it might be an economic alternative for texturizing metals. The limitations are the size and thickness of metals. I like to create cuffs and by adding a backing blank, embossing thinner ga. metal was not really an issue. I also found that the size of the embossing plates was long enough to almost cover a 6" bracelet blank.

For this cuff I used a scrap piece of leather, installed a snap with a snap-setter and embossed a 1/2"x4" piece of 30 ga. copper. After applying Vintag Verdigris metal patina, I cold connected it with nail rivets. Easy. Fast. Fun!

For my next experiment, I used a 22 ga copper cuff blank for the base, which I patina'd with LOS. Then I cut a 1"x6" sheet of 30 ga. copper, embossed it and applied a mixture of Vintag Cinnebar and Amethyst metal patina. Final step? Punching holes with a Vintag 1.5 mm metal punch and cold connecting it with 1.3 mm nail head rivets. What do you think?