Turn Rough Watercolor Paper to Smooth (Hot Press) Tutorial

Hi friends! I had a lot of handmade rough watercolor paper and I wanted to make it more versatile so I decided to try and flatten the texture of the paper and it worked! I’ll show you how in the video below!

I had lots of this cold press/rough Shizen handmade watercolor paper. I like it a lot but I wanted some in a smoother surface. the 5″x7″ size comes in 50 or 100-sheet packs (100 sheets for under $25!) and now I can create just the texture I want for a project. I used my old Big Shot die cutter (here is the newer model) it comes with the platform and plates you will need) to flatten my paper. Watch the video to see how I did it and how you can adapt the technique to work with the machine you have and get different levels of smoothness. Have fun with the variety of textures you can get! Happy crafting!

PS A couple of viewers suggested using a hot laminator to smooth out the texture instead of a die-cut machine. I tried it a couple different ways in my heat laminator and it didn’t change the texture at all. The die-cut machines exert 600lbs of pressure and I think that is really what you need. It was a good idea tho!