If you love to play about creating lots of watercolour backgrounds, but then don’t use them all up in you cards straight away, then watercolour lift is a great way to use up those surplus watercolour backgrounds from when you were playing and experimenting. Using heat embossing, you can trap the watercolour underneath the stamped image, and then lift the colour surrounding it to get stunning backgrounds to use. Whether you use them whole, cut them up or even die-cut from them, you can easily use up those backgrounds to create stunning cards. You can use this with any of you watercolour backgrounds, however, I find it works best when you use panels with bright vivid colours.
PRODUCED AS PART OF MY DESIGN-TEAM WORK FOR WOW!EMBOSSING POWDER - SEE END OF POST FOR MORE DETAILS
Creating the watercolour backgrounds
The cards today use the Tropical Stamp from WOW! Embossing powder along with Arches Hot Press watercolour paper as I prefer to use smooth watercolour paper. However, this technique works well with cold press paper as well.
Cut down your paper and fix it to a hardboard with masking tape. This will help reduce the amount of warping later on. For the first card, use a flat brush to apply clear water over the paper as we will be using the wet on wet technique to get a lovely soft blend for an ombre effect. The watercolours I’m using are the Altenew 36 pan watercolour set. Start off with Fresh Lemon at the top of the paper and working through colours, gradually overlap them to create a seamless blend. Next, use warm sunshine, sun-kissed, orange cream, Autumn blaze and Crimson.
The WOW! Dual speed heat gun is great for watercolour backgrounds as you can use the slow speed setting to dry your panels without worrying that the panel would warp. Now once this is dry, apply a second layer of colour, drying again, and then adding a third layer of colour to create bight vivid background.
This technique can also work on non-uniformed looking backgrounds as well. This time, using a number 12 round brush and add colours randomly to the panel starting off with Mountain Mist – lovely pale turquoise. Using a selection of blues, including Lagoon, Ocean Waves, Dusk and Persian Blue, continue to add the colours haphazardly. As with the other background, dry the panel in between layers, and add another two layers of colour to intensify the background. Of course removing the masking tape when the panel is dry, is the best part.
how-to watercolour lift
So to lift the colour up, we need to first heat emboss the stamped design. Place the tropical stamp in your MISTI and using WOW! Clear ultra slow drying embossing pad, stamp the design onto the panel. If you’ve used cold press watercolour paper, I recommend doing this 2-3 times to ensure the image has stamped well.
To trap the colour, but to still be able to see it, we need to use Clear Gloss embossing powder. Once heat-set, the clear gloss will have a lovely shine to it but you will still see the colour of the paper beneath. This is great for a tone on tone backgrounds. And you could leave it like this. However, the watercolour lift can increase the contrast between the stamping and the background enhancing the design.
For the watercolour lift, you need a spray bottle filled with clear water and some clean paper towel. Spritz the card panel quite liberally with water so you can see the water is starting to form beads on top of the paper. Then use the towel in swiping motions back and forth to lift the colour up. You can do this as many times as you like to increase the contrast.
assembling the cards
To turns these into cards, apply fun foam to the back of the panel with double-sided tape to remove any residual warping. For the first card, time the panel to have a 1/4″ border and added a white embossed sentiment from Altenew Smiles & Hugs stamp with WOW! Opaque Bright white embossing powder.
(click to enlarge images)
how-to watercolour lift
Supplies
Affiliate links used at no extra cost to you at these shops: Altenew (ALT), Scrapbook.com (SB), and Craft Stash UK/US (CS UK/US).
All other shops are not affiliated links: Bumbleberry Papercrafts (BP) and WOW! UK/US (WOW UK/US)
 Original MISTI – My Sweet Petunia Shop at: ALT | BP | SB |  Clear Gloss – WOW! Embossing Powder Shop at: CS | WOW UK | WOW US |  Clear Gloss (large Jar) – WOW! Embossing Powder Shop at: WOW UK | WOW US |
 Opaque Bright White -WOW! Embossing Powder Shop at: CS | WOW UK | WOW US |  WOW! Dual Speed Heat Gun (US version) Shop at: WOW US |  Cherised Memories – Altenew Shop at: ALT | BP | SB |
WOW! Dual Speed Heat Gun (UK version) Shop at: CS | WOW UK |  WOW! Clear ultra slow drying embossing pad Shop at: CS | WOW UK | WOW US |  WOW! Superior Smooth White Cardstock – A4 Shop at: CS | WOW UK |
WOW! Superior Smooth White Cardstock – A5 Shop at: CS | WOW UK |  Reason To Smile – Altenew Shop at: ALT | BP | CS |  Watercolour 36 Pan Set – Altenew Shop at: ALT | BP | SB |
 Smiles and Hugs – Altenew Shop at: ALT | BP | SB |  Tropical – WOW! Embossing Powder Shop at: WOW UK |
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I would love to hear what you think of the project!
This technique is such a fun technique and a great way to use watercolour backgrounds in your cards especially if you have stack building up. What’s more, you can even go further with these are die-cut from them, create die-cut sentiments or use it for an eclipse card. The possibilities are endless.
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Design team work:
DISCLOSURE
This post was produced as part of my design team work for WOW! Embossing Powder have not been paid to make this post, but I am given supplies from WOW! Embossing Powder to use. However, I create projects with creative control and produce projects I am proud of and with products that I love. The information provided is based on my own personal experience – I am not an expert.
