7 Watercolor Background Ideas for Cards

Create colorful and unique Watercolor Backgrounds to elevate your card making. I’m sharing 7 easy ideas to try using your brush pens today.

Today is World Cardmaking Day and to celebrate that, I started making cards- and made a total of 7!! I created unique watercolor backgrounds for each one of the cards and thoroughly enjoyed this experiment with color. 

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Watch the video:

Click the video box below to see how I made the 7 watercolor backgrounds the makeover or click here to watch on YOUTUBE. While you are there, don’t forget to subscribe to my channel!

All you need are your favorite Tombow dual brush pens  in just 3 colors for todays entire video. I have Strathmore watercolor paper that is 140b in weight, cut into 4.5 by 6 inch rectangles. You will need a paint brush or aqua brush, some water, and a few paper towels. I also pulled out a ton of other cardmaking supplies that I will leave a detailed link to everything used at the bottom of this post for you to easily find 🙂

Tombow dual brush pens are water based and hence the color pigment we apply reacts with the water to create a watercolor look. This quality in itself opens up so many techniques! And I absolutely LOVE the 96 bright color options these pens come in. But you guys already know that, right? 😉

I’ve heard about adding salt to your watercolor a few times, but this was the first time I tried it and man you can see the results almost instantly. The salt creates this unique pattern and the colors pool around it but there is nothing beneath the salt areas. This one dried the best and I LOVE this one.

Watercolor backgrounds are so easy to create, and every background is unique to itself. and the process is a little bit like an experiment, you never know what you will end up with.

For the card sentiments, I created a bunch of handlettered ones (you must watch the video to see those!) and I used the MONO Twin Permanent marker for that. This is a crisp black marker that comes with two tips. You could also directly letter onto the watercolor backgrounds itself with this marker- it is oil based and will not mess up the watercoloring. I did that on a few of my cards which you can see below.

Assembling the cards: To adhere the watercolor background to the card base, I used the Tombow Xtreme adhesive. To adhere watercolor paper I always use this tape runner, it holds the watercolor paper down firmly and keeps it flat and prevents it from buckling or warping. There is one trick though, this is a super strong adhesive, so you cant easily lift the runner off the paper without jamming it up, so instead you need to swipe to the right and off the paper. If you remember this one simple trick, this will soon become your favorite adhesive

I also die cut a bunch of small alphabets using the Lawn Fawn Alphabets die Cole. I absolutely adore this font, and the best way to adhere these small die cuts is with the Tombow Mono liquid glue. I add a tiny amount of the glue to the back of each alphabet and I let it dry a minute or two and then placed them onto the card. If you wait a few minutes and let the glue go tacky, then it is less likely to squirt out from underneath when you add it to the card. This glue has been a go to glue of mine ever since I started paper crafting.

Here is a closer look at all the cards I created today. There are so many! Let me know in the comments below which are your favorites! I look forward to hearing your feedback.

Supplies List:

Below, I have tried to list all of the craft supplies I pulled out to create this project. Affiliate links have been used. This means that if you make a purchase I earn a small commission.

• Strathmore 400 Series Watercolor Pad
• Derwent Art Supplies, Waterbrush, 3 Pack 
• Lawn Fawn Custom Craft Dies – Cole’s ABCs 
• Lawn Fawn Lawn Cuts Craft Die Outside In Stitched Rectangle Stackables 
• Tombow Dual Brush Pen Art Markers,96 Color Set with Desk Stand 
• Tombow Dual Brush Pen Art Markers, Bright, 10-Pack
• Tonic Studios 12 Inches Advantage Trimmer 
• Nuvo Crystal Drops Bundle 
• Mono Multi Liquid Glue Carded, 0.88-Ounce 
• Tombow Xtreme Adhesive Runner, Clear 
• Tombow MONO Twin Permanent Marker