I wanted some pillows for my new couch that resonated personally. I hit on the idea of embossing one of my Celtic key pattern designs into some forest green velvet. I figured I could make a form/stamp/die with the Glowforge and, do the embossing with my old heat press.
I figured MDF would be sufficiently heat-resistant to get me at least a few impressions. I cut the design from one sheet of 1/8” Draftboard and, glued it onto a backing sheet.
Clamping the heat press down until it just holds a single 1/8” sheet and adding an additional quarter turn gets the pressure set. The range that works well seems to be pretty narrow.
The form goes on the lower platen of the heat press, facing up. The velvet goes on top of the form, facing down.
Wow! I didn’t know I could do that at home!!! I’m going to have so much unnecessary velvet around my house now…luckily I just cleaned out my fabric hoard… so I have a little space…
I used to hand carve blocks for embossing various designs on velvet for scarves (used an iron w/out steam vents, which took a while to find!)–but your idea of using a heat press with board cut on the GF is brilliant!
You can also emboss thin leathers this way, too… (e.g. lambskin).
