DIY Heat Embossed Succulent Greeting Card

It's time to succ it up, and learn something new! Today we'll be focusing on how you can add a heat embossed technique to your homemade cards. So grab your favorite embossing powders, ink pads, and clear stamps, and follow along with us! We'll show you how easy it is to try heat embossing.

• "Succ It Up" Clear Stamp Set
• Acrylic Stamp Block
• Black Pigment Ink Pad
• White Cardstock
• Embossing Powder (color of your choice)
• Embossing Pen (in clear)
• Coloring Medium (watercolor, paint, pencils, or marks)
• Heat Tool
• Envelope

• Watercolors
• Art brush (if using watercolors or paints)
• Corner Rounder
• Glue Tape Runner
• Gelly Roll White Gel Pen
• Pearl Embellishment Dots
• Address Stamp

To get started, gather all of your materials so you have them accessible. Place your white card stock onto a craft mat or paper to protect your surface. For this card, start with your art medium of choice, we are using watercolor paints in our project.

Paint or color the background of your card for the base. We chose green and yellow to blend together to create a natural and organic look. Let your watercolor, paint, or markers dry. You can use the heat tool to speed up this process.

Tip: to add some additional style and texture, use your brush to splatter your watercolor (carefully) to create a bit of a distressed and organic feel.

Using clear stamps is easy, simply peel your stamp from the backing sheet and place it onto an acrylic stamp block. The photopolymer is slightly tacky, so your stamp can easily stick and be removed from your stamp block.

Second, ink your stamp using pigment ink and the color of your choice. In this project, we are using Re:Marks black pigment ink. Pigment ink must be used for heat embossing because of its slow-drying nature.

Now it's time to start embossing. We are using an embossing pen to help give us more refined detail for our final embossed design. Embossing pens can be used in two ways. First, you can use the pen directly onto the stamp to stamp your embossed ink. For example, we did this for the "Succ it up" text. You can also use the embossing pen to draw over your stamped impressions or freely draw anywhere onto your card.

Once you have added your embossing pen to your card, quickly coat the area with embossing powder. Once the embossing powder is added, lift up your card to tap off excess powder.

Tip: Anything the embossing powder touches, will set. Be sure to gently wipe away any spots where you don't want your embossing powder to be before you heat set.

The final step to embossing your card is to simply heat set the powder with a heat tool. use the heat tool in a circular motion 4-6 inches away from your card. You will see your design change right before your eyes. This is how you know your embossing powder has set. It only takes a few moments for the heat tool to set your embossing powder.

This tool gets VERY hot, so be careful when using it, do not place your hand underneath the tool to check the temperature, and do not place the heated area of the tool right next to the paper, or you might burn your paper!

If you don't want your card to succ, add some extra pizzaz! Here are some ideas for how we added detail and embellishments to our card. First, we used the white gel pen to add some detail to our potted succulents. Second, we used small adhesive pearl emellishments to compliment the sparkle of the embossing powder. What other ways can you think of to add extra details?

Try these succulent-inspired sayings for your occasions. These can be used for birthdays, friendship cards, or support cards.

• Succ it up!
• You are Succulent!
• Hope Your Birthday Doesn't Succ
• Life Will Succ Without You
• Work Will Succ Without You
• Some Things Just Succ
• I Don't Think You Succ

Thanks for Succ-ing it up with us and learning this new skill! Heat embossing is so easy and universal. What other projects and cards could you use heat embossing for? Don't forget to follow our blog and socials for more card-making inspiration and tips!