Made Embossed Tin Decorations
5th December 2023 - New Experience Number 33.
December is a great month to try new things, especially crafting experiences. You’ll find many events and workshops running throughout the month offering opportunities to make your own decorations to add a touch of individuality and uniqueness to your festive trimmings.
Previously my only experience of making things with metal involved a lot of heat and a fair bit of muscle when I tried blacksmithing. This experience was much more delicate than I had imagined, as I made embossed tin decorations.
Make And Bake
Sparkling warmly in the dark December evening, Bluebird Bakery was in full festive mode. It may sound like an unusual venue for a craft workshop, but they are making great use of the bakery cafe space by hosting events on an evening under the name of ‘Rise’.
To accompany the activity there were the usual offerings you’d expect in a cafe, along with the festive addition of sweet and spicy mulled wine, and some oh-so-delicious mince pies freshly made that day! They were the best I’ve had in a long time!
The tables were all laid out with the kits and equipment we needed, and some additional items we could borrow for the night. This was going to be craft-tastic!
Not So Heavy Metal
I don’t know about you, but I’d never worked with tin before, and I’d envisaged having to clean out an old baked bean tin, rolling it flat and then making the decorations. It was a pleasant relief that there wasn’t a speck of bean juice to be seen as our kits contained all we needed to make our decorations.
The tin was incredibly light. Thicker than foil, and thankfully thinner than tin cans. There were five, flat, square sheets in our packs ready for us to work with and to make several hanging decorations.
Top Notch Tuition - Embossed Tin Decorations
Our instructor, Susan, talked us through how to make the beautiful decorations and was on hand throughout the evening to offer help, advice and encouragement. She brought around small pieces of tin to practice on which was really helpful so that we would get a feel for how it worked and hopefully meant we wouldn’t mess up our designs!
Using this small sampler helped me to understand how easily the tin could be marked. As well as the intentional embossing, it did also pick up indentations if I pressed on too hard or from fingernails. However, this was not a bad thing as it gave the pieces a sort of aged look.
Getting Tooled Up
Surprisingly, the tools for embossing were not as technical as you might think.
Once I’d drawn around the shape of the decoration, it needed to be cut out of the metal. No specific tools were required. A pair of ordinary scissors were more than adequate for the job.
A couple of pages from an old book were provided for resting on. This was a better work surface than a hard table.
Our kit also contained a simple wooden stick – the sort of thing you could pick up in a takeaway! There were also some specific wooden implements with rounded metal ends that we could borrow for the evening.
Lastly, another tool available to us was a mechanical pencil – the sort that you click to feed the nib through. Especially without any lead in them, they were perfect for both gripping in your hand, and indenting the metal!
Prepared Patterns - Embossed Tin Decorations
I wasn’t sure what to make and thankfully we were provided with some patterns to give us inspiration. Other people had brought their own designs printed on paper, and some people just went freehand. I found having the patterns particularly useful to create the outline of the decoration, and then I went freestyle for the design within.
Getting Decorative
My first make was a heart. I liked the pattern on the template so decided to have a go at this to start with. For this first attempt, I did place the template over the tin and used the wooden stick from my kit to draw over the top of the paper. It worked well, but was a little tricky trying to keep the paper exactly in place.
Feeling more confident in what I was doing, I drew around the paper templates to create the shapes for my additional pieces, and created my own designs for the patterns. It was a very relaxing experience moving the embossing implements over the tin. In the 2 hour session I made a reindeer, a star, holly leaves and some Christmas trees. I was really pleased with how they turned out. There was still a sheet of tin left which I took home to make a decoration based on a photograph!
Satisfyingly Simple
It didn’t take too much pressure to emboss the tin, and it was very satisfying as the tool glided smoothly across the metal to make the lines and marks of our patterns.
Absolutely any sort of pattern worked well. There was no right or wrong. I personally preferred a lot of lines on mine as I loved the way the light caught the ridges and furrows of the composition.
Getting The Hang Of It
To turn our designs into decorations, the final step was adding some way of hanging them on the tree. Alternatively, some people decided to hang all of their creations onto one long piece of yarn as a garland.
Our kit included a needle and some thread, and it was as simple as pushing the needle through the tin. It was that easy! The trickiest and fiddliest part of the whole make was threading the needle!
Inspiration And Conversation
I was sitting with two lovely ladies who had come on their own. It was really nice getting to know them. Seeing what they were doing and how they were getting on was brilliant for sparking creative ideas that we adapted into our own designs. Their finished pieces were brilliant. They also gave me some great ideas for future new things to try!
'Tin' Out Of 'Tin' For This Festive Make
I’d not seen this activity at Christmas before, and I’m really glad I gave it a go. It was fantastically festive and I loved creating something pretty and individual to add to our ever growing box of decorations.
Want To Try It Yourself?
I found this workshop through the Rise website where they list all of their events.
Susan Bradley was our instructor. You can see her upcoming workshops on her Susan Bradley Design website.
Take a look on eventbrite to see if any similar events are happening near you.
There are lots of kits online at places such as Not On The High Street and Etsy. You can order them and try this at home if there isn’t a workshop near you.
Cost Of Experience
The workshop I went to cost £30. Drinks and mince pies were extra.
Kits online seem to start from around £20
Recommendations
Place your templates wisely on the sheet of tin and you’ll be able to make additional little embossed decorations from the extra material!
Why not get creative and find other implements that could use to emboss the tin?
If there isn’t an event happening near you, why not order some kits online for you and some friends and host your own fabulously festive workshop?
The decorations can make nice hand made unique gifts.
- Let me know how you get on if you give this a go, I’d love to see your creations!
Don’t forget to take a picture of your finished decorations!