Watercolor Floral Card with Embossing

Last week I shared how I swatch my paint and watercolor collections, along with showcasing Altenew Artists’ Watercolor 24 Pan Set and Altenew Watercolor Brush Markers Winter Wonderland Set. This week, I’m using these watercolors to create 2 simple floral cards. This is my go-to technique for watercoloring that is simple and provides beautiful results.

To see the video for this tutorial, click the link below to pop over to my YouTube Channel.

To start, Altenew’s Spider Mums stamp set is my floral image for these cards. This outline floral image is perfect for heat embossing and watercoloring. I’m using Canson XL Watercolor Paper and first stamping with VersaMark Watermark Ink. Then, I heat emboss using Ranger Embossing Powder in black. The bold black gives me a great base to watercolor over.

Watercoloring

Next, comes watercoloring!

When watercoloring with a heat embossed image, the raised embossing helps keep your watercolor in place. This allows for a precise application of color, if that is the look you are going for. Of course, you can still color outside the lines if you so choose. The embossing adds interesting areas where watercolor and water can pool. This allows for some of the natural watercolor beauty to shine through.

Once my panels were completely dry, I trimmed them down to fit on an A2 sized card. One card I used Pinkfresh Studio’s Ornate Banner die for a decorative tag look, the other panel I trimmed to 4” wide by 5 1/4” tall.

Finishing

To complete these cards, a quick stamping of a sentiment from Altenew’s Life is Beautiful stamp set and VersaFine Pigment Ink in Onxy Black finished the card panels. I used Distress Collage Medium to adhere them to A2 card bases. With that, these watercolor and embossing cards were done!

I love the simplicity of these cards – and that fact that I can create a watercolor piece that I am confident enough to give away! This is why watercoloring and embossing are a definite pair within my craft room!

Have you tried watercoloring over an embossed image? What do you think of the technique? For more inspiration on this type of watercoloring, check out my post on Happy Birthday Watercolor – this specific project uses embossing, but I didn’t stay in the lines – see how gorgeous the results are.