Today I’m sharing an old technique but one I still return to time and time again as it produces such lovely results. Heat emboss resist is where you stamp a design and heat set an embossing powder over the top. This creates a smooth, slick surface which will resist watercolours or inks added over the top. I particularly like using this technique with a lovely background stamp and the one I’m using today is the Flourish Background from Simon Says Stamp. I’ve linked all supplies at the end of this post. Compensated affiliate links used where possible at no cost to you.
VIDEO
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HEAT EMBOSS RESIST
I’m going to watercolour over the heat embossed design, and so I picked a watercolour card to use, Arches Hot-Pressed watercolour card. A hot-pressed card has a smoother surface than a cold-pressed card which is more textured, and this will mean that I will get a better stamped impression of the delicate pattern on this stamp on the smooth hot-pressed card. I cut the watercolour card to be 6 inches square and placed it in the Misti, I lined up the background stamp on top and then closed the door of the Misti to pick up the stamp. I treated the card with an anti-static powder bag, and this will help prevent embossing powder randomly sticking everywhere. I stamped the background several times in Simon Says Stamp clear embossing ink to ensure I had a good impression. Stamping in a clear ink like this means that you can’t see if you have covered everywhere sufficiently and so I like to stamp at least a couple of times to make sure. I then sprinkled Simon Says Stamp white embossing powder over the stamped impression, making sure to cover everywhere fully and then I heat set with a preheated heat tool until the powder melted and smoothed over.
I’m going to be using a lot of water on this card, and so I attached it to a board with painter’s tape to help prevent the card from warping. To start, I covered the whole card with a layer of water using a broad flat brush. The layer of water will help any paint I add to flow, and puddle between the embossed design and that is one of the things I love about adding the paint over the embossing, the way you get darker areas where pigment has puddled around the design and then highlight areas where there’s more water. Personally, I like the contrast between the lights and shades and I feel it adds interest and movement. The paints I used are from Daniel Smith. In the main, I used Cascade Green a lovely complex green which separates as it dries into areas of blues, greens and browns. To emphasise the blues more, I also brought in Phthalo Turquoise. I splattered liberally with perfect pearls solution at times to add shimmer, and I also spritzed with more water to get things flowing more. I like to work in layers, so having dried the first layer I then came back in with a second layer and eventually a third layer, with these layers I used less water, and so you get more concentrated colour and the hard lines as the paints dry. This all adds more texture and interest.
The heat embossing does resist some of the paint, but equally, when adding more concentrated colour, you can find that the paint settles on top of the embossing. You can rub with a soft cloth, but I find an effective method is to take a scrap piece of card, fold it a couple of times so that it is nice and sturdy and then wrap a baby wipe around it. Dragging the wipe covered edge of the card over the painted surface should hit just the raised embossed areas and wipe the paint away. Another way to bring back some of the white embossing is to dampen the embossed areas with a small paintbrush and then mop up the paint with a paper towel. Personally, in the same way that I like highlights and shade areas in the painting, I also like how the embossing comes and goes depending on how much paint is over the top. However, if this style isn’t for you, then you can always create a pretty watercoloured panel, and then white heat emboss over the top and this way you will have a pristine white embossed pattern. I finished off this panel with a good splatter of more of the perfect pearls solution, white gouache and some of the leftover paints I used. I really like how these multi-layered backgrounds come together. You can see the pattern, but it comes and goes with the painted layers and splatter.
I removed the painter’s tape and trimmed the background panel down to be just slightly smaller than an A2 card and then played around with adding vellum over the top to create a spot for a sentiment. I sewed the vellum in place with silver thread, and you can perhaps just see that I tore the edges of the vellum strip. I did this by taking a long strip and then ripping the one edge and then repeating on the other edge before I went on to sew. The vellum now creates the perfect spot for my die cut sentiment. I die cut the Thinking Of You dies from Simon Says Stamp from Bazzill Marshmallow card. I find this soft white a good match for the embossing rather than a bright white. I used Gina K connect glue to add the sentiment to the vellum, and I find it handy to dab off excess glue on a scrap piece of card before adding it to the vellum. This way you are less likely to get excess glue squidging out the sides. I used a T square ruler to make sure I had the first line on straight and then continued to add the rest of the die cuts.
To embellish this simple card a little, I pulled out the Outline Clustered Leaves die. This has to rank up there with one of my all time favourite dies. I die cut the die from more Bazzill Marshmallow card and then trimmed a couple of pieces away from the main sprig to add under my sentiment vellum panel. I added a little Gina K Connect glue to the end of the branch and then tucked it under the vellum. This will help to keep the leaves in place, but I also added a few of the solid die cut leaves with foam adhesive, and I made sure to attach these leaves so that they helped to adhere the sprigs in place. I scored and folded an A2 card base from Bazzill Marshmallow card and then attached the panel with foam adhesive. As a final embellishment, I sprinkled around a few Diamonds in the opalescent colourway from Little Things From Lucy’s cards and kept them in place with Gina K Connect glue.
SUPPLIES
You can find links to the supplies I’ve used below; click on the picture or shop icon to get taken directly to the product. Where available I use compensated affiliate links which means if you make a purchase I receive a small commission at no extra cost to you. Thank you! Items marked with an asterisk (*) were provided by a store or the manufacturer. You can read my affiliate and product disclosure here. I genuinely appreciate your support.
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Oh so lovely, Debby. I like this resist design with the background shades of green. What a great idea to sew the vellum onto the card…this piece, together with the die cut leaf cluster, work so well together. tfs
Absolutely beautiful, Debbie! One of my very favorite techniques!
Beautiful card. Love it.
Absolutely stunning Debby, this background stamp is so pretty and intricate on its own but the water colour really makes it pop. Well done.
So very beautiful Debby, love the green with the white and then the elegant vellum on top.
Thank you so much for showing.
Stunning card!! Love all the shades of green and white!