Background Bonus

8

By Anita Light

A friend recently asked me to do some callig-

raphy for a display, and unfortunately, I forgot
all about it until the last minute. After a bit of a
panic I remembered an article in issue 13 (Spring
2000) in which Ann Scott had printed her words
out from her computer and then gone over them
in pen so they looked hand written. This seemed

like the solution
to my problem
as it would be
much quicker
than writing
them from
scratch.

My idea was

to print the
messages out on
my (rather old -
about 10 years)
Epson Dot
Matrix printer,
then go over the
writing using
an embossing
pen and gold
embossing pow-

der. I began writing over the printing with the
embossing pen but, worried that the ink might
dry before I had completed all the words I
decided to sprinkle and emboss it in sections.

As I sprinkled the gold powder over the

paper I noticed it seemed to stick to the plain
printed words just as well as the ones I had
written over. I decided to try embossing all of it
and it worked a treat making the rest of the job
really simple – no writing over needed - simply
print, sprinkle and emboss.

Inspired by this success, I began experiment-

ing further. It seemed an excellent way of making
my own embossed background papers, with any
message I wanted and without great expenditure
on rubber stamps. I tried all sorts of different
things, some successful others not and ended
up with a lovely selection of background papers
at virtually no cost.

9

The main thing

I have to empha-
sise is that this only
worked on my
dot matrix printer,
I tried using an
inkjet to no avail.
So for anyone with
an old dot matrix
printer languishing
in a cupboard (it’s
hard to throw
things out some-
times isn’t it), why
not give it a try?

The ink does

dry out so you
have to be ready
to emboss straight
after printing, I
tried 10 lines of
print 10cm wide
and it embossed
with no problems.
When I tried 12
lines by 16cm wide
the first line did not
emboss success-
fully, so obviously
time is a factor but
it is not necessary to be too hasty.

One problem I have since encountered

is that after fitting a new ribbon, a little too
much embossing powder sticks to the ink
and the excess has to be brushed off. This
will improve as the ribbon becomes more
used, but perhaps will allow a little extra
time for embossing as the print is less dry.

I also tried

some of the
printers at
school. The
newest of them
needed pow-
dering and
embossing very
swiftly and I
could only
print a few
words. Their
older printers
are still newer
than mine, only
about five years
old. These were

10

better than their new ones but still gave less time
for embossing than my old one.

Different types of embossing powder and

paper surfaces also had an effect. An unnamed
powder in a dumpy container was most effective,
but I can’t remember where it came from. Paper
which is slightly shiny was okay but not as good
as paper with a dull surface. I tried the same
technique with printed out pictures and have included
some examples. I have recently purchased a new com-
puter which is more versatile than my old one - I am
not changing my printer though!!!

We say: This seemed like an idea which would be

even better if it worked with other sorts of printers so,
we gave our inkjet printers, fax machines and photocopier
a try all, sadly, without success.

We use dot matrix printers for our invoices and had

reasonably good results printing on two part invoice

paper (see our samples on the
right), some customers almost
got embossed invoices! We did
have to be fairly quick with the
embossing and some bits were
patchy, however, we always
managed to get a good sized area
on each sheet which worked well
and the embossing was good.

What a pity our printers only

take paper with feed holes, so
we can’t try it out with a good
quality paper.

Hello,

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