Embossed Metal Ornaments

My Friend Michele over at The Scrap Shoppe is still hosting her fun and inspiring Homemade Holidays, and I was excited to do another guest post. This time I did:  Embossed Metal Ornaments similar to those I have on one of my Christmas trees.

First you'll need some metal soft enough to emboss. Walnut Hollow and Ten Second Studios sell it as does AMACO which is what I'm using here:

I got mine at Michaels but you can find it at many art supply stores. It comes in copper, brass, aluminum, and pewter as well as colors. It also comes in different weights. I like the medium.

Then decide what you want your ornament to be and find an image you can trace (or you can draw freehand). I chose a dove ( downloaded from the internet) and printed out on regular copy paper. Cut off a piece of your metal and lay your image on top:

Sorry for the pic quality...didn't realize the reflection of the light

The AMACO metal comes with a wood stylus or you can use a ball point pen , pencil, or dry embossing tool. I have a rubber mat I use but you can use magazines or a stack of newspaper to give yourself some cushion so when you trace, you get some indentation. You don't have to press super hard, but firmly.

Once you 've traced your image, you can flip it over and go around the inside or outside edge to give it more definition. Then you can start designing. I did freehand designs or you can trace a design just like you did your image:

I just made a scallop pattern around the edge and some squiggly lines in the tail.

When you're happy with your design, then cut out around the image. You can use regular craft scissors. You don't need special ones.

I added some spirals to the middle

While there are all kinds of specialty tools you can buy:

You don't have to. Sewing tools like pattern wheels work great:

I just used a perforation wheel to make random lines on this one which you'll see below. Once you've cut out your images, add a small eyelet in the center and then whatever you want to use to hang it. I added these to another of my trees :

This is the one I used the pattern wheel on just making random lines and then added "dots" using a dry embossing stylus

Hope that made sense. It can get very addicting and the metal goes a long way. I've used it on cards, as accents on altered art, etc. Here's another piece I did a couple of years ago that I aged with a little black paint:

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