Hand embossing in 4 easy steps

One of the first things I noticed when I started looking at journaling and journal supplies was that about the only choice you had when looking for journal books was color and paper size.  I had seen embossed journals and thought they were cool, but I didn’t see a specific design that I wanted. 

The next thing I figured I would look for is if anyone online could emboss journals for me. There are definitely vendors out there, but they tend to require you to buy 20+ journals per order and have around $100 setup fees. Oooof. Nope. That’s too rich for my blood. 

There has to be another option.

I started watching leatherworking videos on YouTube to see what was out there. I eventually stumbled on a maker of leather goods tutorial on how to apply a makers mark to finished goods.  This was the key to a lot of the techniques I use at the forge to make small batch embossed notebooks. Which is more what I was looking for in the first place.

Step 1: design

Come up with a logo or a look that I want to do. Make the design in Adobe Illustrator and output a pdf version for brass milling.

Step 2: order brass stamp

Working with some sellers on Etsy you can get brass stamps made for a relatively low cost.  These take some time to get to you so don’t expect for a really quick turnaround. But this is still a heck of a lot less expensive than the setup costs for custom journals.

Step 3: Workshop setup

You’ll need:

Step 4: The pressing

Heat up your die to about 150 degrees F and then apply pressure to your book for about 5 seconds. 150 degrees was the ideal temperature that I found during my tests, any cooler and I wouldn’t get a permanent set of my design. Hotter than 150 didn’t improve things and would sometimes cause melting issues in not 100% leather. This should set the design well into your book. I’ve found that having a bit of flex in the pressed item helps to get a good impression across the entire design and have gone up to 2.5x2.5 inches without issue. One other note, you probably want to file or sand the edges of your die so that you don’t get accidental creases due to the flex of the embossed item.

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Step 5: Contact us

Drop us a note and let us know what your project is. We can work with you on design and deliver any number of notebooks in your choice of color and size. We can even do re-orders if you’d like in the future!

AlexDIY, R&D, leather