Tin Embossing

Tin embossing is a craft where you draw into thin, soft sheets of metal with a blunt tool so the lines push out on the other side as raised patterns. The metal is usually a light foil of tin, aluminium, copper or brass. Turn it over and your design stands proud and catches the light. It's metalwork, minus the furnace.

Pressing designs into metal is an old idea, and tinwork is a much-loved folk art in many places, Mexico in particular, where bright tin hearts, stars and birds are a classic.

The main tool is an embossing stylus, a pen-shaped tool with a smooth, rounded tip, often in a few sizes for fine lines and broad areas. You work on something soft underneath, like a foam or felt mat, so the metal has somewhere to give.

A paper template helps you trace a design onto the foil before you start. Scissors cut the foil into shapes, and wooden tools are handy for smoothing and shaping. Some people finish their piece with coloured inks or a dark patina rubbed into the grooves to make the pattern pop.

Lay your foil face down on the soft mat and trace your design with the stylus, pressing firmly but smoothly. Everything you draw here will be raised on the front. Then flip it over onto a hard surface and trace just outside your raised lines, which sharpens the edges and makes the shapes really stand out. Keep flipping and working both sides to build up depth. Dots, lines, crosshatching and swirls all create texture. This push-and-flip method is closely related to repoussé, the traditional technique for raising designs in metal.

Hanging decorations, wall panels, bookmarks, greetings cards, little shrines, badges and miniature works of art. Stars, hearts, birds, fish and flowers are traditional, but it's a flexible medium, so weird, charming or downright silly are all on the table. Your cat, rendered in gold? Why not.

Very. If you can doodle, you can emboss. The metal is soft enough to work with light pressure, and mistakes can often be smoothed back out. It's calm, absorbing, surprisingly addictive work, and there's something deeply satisfying about watching flat foil turn into something that looks like treasure.

You might also like Metal Jewellery Making, Pyrography and Lino Printing.

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