VIDEO - Watercolor Emboss Resist Four Ways with Jenny

Have you been having fun playing along with our Emboss Resist November Challenge? One of my favorite forms of emboss resist is watercolor, so today I'm showing you four cards that all feature watercolor emboss resist. The twist is that they all use slightly different watercolor mediums. Most of these cards are quick to make. In all of my cards I use WOW! Opaque Bright White Embossing Powder for the resist technique, but you can use any WOW! powder for this.

There's a video of the process over on the WOW! You Tube channel which you can find here:

For my first card, I stamped the Hero Arts Holiday Foliage Bold Print background in WOW! Embossing ink onto watercolor cardstock and heat embossed with WOW! Opaque Bright White. I used the Superfine grade of powder as this is a very intricate pattern.

For my watercolor medium, I wanted to pick out some of the images with different colors, while still leaving it quite sketchy, so I decided to opt for watercolor brush markers (I'm using the Tropical set by Altenew). I squeezed the color out in places on the cardstock, and then pulled it out a little with a waterbrush. I added some greens and yellows, and dried in between (using setting 1 on my WOW! Heat Tool).

I also added some browns in the pine cones. I made sure that it faded out towards the bottom of the card.

I kept the rest of the card simple. I die cut a Thanks die (by Taylored Expressions) from yellow fun foam and gold glitter cardstock (you could use your WOW! Sparkles instead of glitter cardstock for this). I adhered the pieces together and popped them on my card panel. As a finishing touch I added some Nuvo Jewel Drops in Limoncello.

For my second card, I used liquid watercolor. There are several on the market - I'm using Dr Ph Martin's Hydrus. I created an embossed background as before (this time using Simon's Leaves and Berries background stamp) and then I used purple and blue liquid watercolors and just dropped them onto the panel. I wasn't sure how intense they'd be, and the answer is - VERY! This is a huge plus as many watercolors often dry back when you add lots of water, and it helps create a bolder color. I did spritz with water a little, and then left it to dry.

To finish my card, I die cut the dried panel with the Altenew Bold Alphas (lower case) and a stitched rectangle die, spelling out the word Joy. I popped it up on foam tape onto a white note card. To add some extra sparkle, I die cut the Simon Says Stamp Lea, Grace and Marie snowflakes from glitter cardstock (the same as used for the Thanks die), and popped them onto my card.

My next emboss resist uses the Hero Arts Holiday Foliage Bold Print again, embossed in OBW. I spritzed the entire piece with water and then dropped some watercolor powders into it - I wanted a bit of shimmer so I'm using Nuvo Shimmer powder in Lilac Waterfall and Blue Blitz. The embossing resists the powder where there is water, so spritz off any excess to get the look you want. It's a much softer look than the other two mediums.

I trimmed a piece of vellum down to fit on the front, and heat embossed it with the Merry greeting from the Simon Says Stamp Holiday Greetings Mix 1. I used Primary Indigo EP which looks fab on vellum, and helped to pull in the purple bits of the powder in the background. I popped some small dots of liquid glue on the back and adhered the velum over my panel, finishing with a few pale pink enamel dots to cover the glue.

My last card uses the ink smushing technique - technically this uses Distress Inks rather than watercolors, but I figured it's very very very close! I heat embossed the Simon Says Stamp Kaleidoscope background in WOW! OBW. I then used some Distress inks in Candied Apple, Abandoned Coral, Carved Pumpkin and Fossilised Amber, smushed them onto my craft mat and spritzed with water. I then dunked my embossed panel into the ink and heat dried it.

I repeated this a couple more times, to get this fun speckled look you can see on the panel close up. To finish, I die cut the word 'LOVE' using Altenew's Fine Alpha dies, and cut again with a stitched rectangle die, then popped it up on foam tape. For some co-ordinating sparkle, I added some Phoenix sequins by Catherine Pooler.

What's your favorite medium to use with the emboss resist technique?

Jenny x

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