Mixed Media Bulk Valentines Day Cards

Hello Everyone! This is my 1000th post! I almost missed it. LOL

Since it's a milestone I thought I'd share a tutorial for bulk Valentines Day cards. This way if you're inspired you'll have plenty of time to make and send them. 

I made mine with a hand-carved stamp, but any heart-shaped stamp will do. This works for any shape really, but V-Day is all about the hearts. 

Indulge me as I show you the whole process, just ignore the bits that don't apply or roll your eyes a bunch and say, "duh!"

This is my drawing transferred onto a piece of Speedy-Carve. To transfer to rubber all you do is lay the front (pencil side) of your drawing onto the rubber and burnish with a spoon, pen lid, your finger... until it transfers. Which is pretty much immediately.

This symbol has been haunting my dreams lately. Don't know why but I'm following the trail to see where it leads. 

Carve your stamp.

As soon as I finish a hand-carved stamp, I usually stamp it a few times in my art journals. It serves as a nice record of what I made as I frequently give stamps away. You can see I made a stencil too (orange, mid- left)

But let's get to the Valentines, shall we.

Supplies (loose suggestions, this is mixed-media after all)

1.  Watercolor - mine are liquid as I use them to make spray ink, but pans work just the same.
2.  Stamp, Staz-on ink
3.  Heat tool
4.  Paper towel
5.  Water, brushes
6.  Watercolor paper, cut or torn to desired size.
7.  Map or book paper (I used both)
8.  Adhesive (Mod Podge)
9.  Gold Paint

Step One: Create your watercolor backgrounds.

1. Add water with a brush where you want your paint to spread. It will only move around the wet area. This is a wonderful quality that allows you to blend colors or keep them separate.

2. Dab paint into the wet area

3. Paint spreads (or you help it a bit with your brush)

4. Repeat with new color (orange) having some parts mingle and some not.

5. To soften the color roll over card with paper towel

6. Keep adding colors until satisfied.

Note: At any point you can use your heat tool to dry an area so the paint won't spread into it. 

Once you've painted your background, take a clean brush and flick water all over it. Wait a few seconds and then roll over the card with your paper towel. It will lift off the paint and leave pretty lightened areas. 

 

Another option is to get one card covered in paint and place a second dry card on top to transfer the paint.

left is the top (dry) card, right is the painted card. 

 It's more smooshy and diffused - a nice effect.

Or, if you're me, you'll be all, "That's dusty rose and brown. EW!"

All you need to do is add a pop of a bright color and the whole piece perks up.

You'll also note that I intentionally avoided water spattering the fuchsia bit so it has more weight in the background.

Make a lot of backgrounds because A. You've already hauled your stuff out, and B. it makes you less attached to the success of any one piece. 

For example:

I love the tulippy one with all the white space (right) but think the left one looks like someone sneezed paint all over  the place. *shudder* But who cares... I made about 20. No one card is a deal breaker. And that messy one - punched, torn into strips, or with some stamping will probably be pretty great too. 

So these soft ones are for Valentines, there is enough color range to suit all my friends different personalities.

And these wild, bold ones with lots of luscious white space and distinct edges are for art journalling and future projects. FWIW, I've never used my black watercolor before. Oh, my! It's my new favorite thing.

Now that we've made a big pile of painted cards, let's finish them off. 

Once they're dry, of course. Too soon and it'll be a big mess.

Stamp your image on the card.

(don't mind the bit of acrylic on this one. Years ago I'd stamped off some bubble wrap into my watercolor pad and decided to not worry about it)

Stamp again on your map or book paper. Since I'm only filling in the heart I only stamped the top half. 

Cut out the heart. 

Glue the heart into your image.

Be careful as your watercolor will react to the glue. I put the Mod Podge on once, with a brush, not going back and forth over the area. Just one quick pass. Then you smooth down the map paper and carefully remove any seeping glue with your finger. No need to go over the top of the map paper like you would with a collage. This is just a card and you'll risk mixing up the paint.

Gild the edges with gold paint. I could only find my gold fabric paint (which worked fine). The edging really creates a beautiful frame, adds a little glamour and accentuates any torn edges.

And there you go! This set of nine cards took very little time.

They are different enough to keep me engaged but I didn't have to worry about design choices at every step.

If you click on the picture to see it full-sized you'll notice that there are a few with french dictionary pages instead of maps. Again, the variety keeps me interested and if the colors of the map and the card were too close I needed more contrast. 

I'll add a sentiment or a note on the back, and  leave the fronts plain so they can be enjoyed year round. 

Sending a little piece of art in the mail is sure to bring smiles to your loved ones. 

If you try this please let me know.

Warmly, 

~~~~~Nicole

Neon Rock and Roll Envelopes: Tutorial

This is an excellent waiting room/watching TV/sitting in the car craft. After the initial building phase (also very simple) it requires only a few supplies and not a ton of mental bandwidth. I made these on my couch, in a coffee shop and in bed. 

It all started when I ran out of envelopes. I made a note to pick some up and by chance found myself at Barnes and Noble later that day. In their Two Dollar Dot section they had a ton of gorgeous coffee table books which are the perfect size for making envelopes. Since an unfolded envelope is roughly square shaped they are too big for most regular sized books.

The coolest $2 book was this Beatles in America poster book. It had 20 posters plus some pages of text. They were all perforated which made my job even easier. 

Making the Envelope

First you find an envelope that is the size you want to create. This is just a regular A2 card envelope. 

Open it up. If you rip it a bit, patch up the thin spots with tape. 

This envelope served as an adequate template for all 20 that I made but the edges were getting a bit rounded and dented by the end. If you want something sturdier you could trace it onto card stock or chipboard (like a cereal box) but I didn't need to.

1. Trace around the envelope.

I used a black pen so it would show up well. Pencil would be less obvious on the black and white images.

2. Cut out with scissors.

3. Fold.

I scored mine before folding and cut right through several of the earlier ones. A little washi tape fixed them right up and added interest but using a lighter hand, or not scoring at all is likely better. Be sure to burnish your folds so the envelope lies flat. The back of a spoon works great.

4. Glue the bottom flaps closed. 

I used my ATG (dry adhesive) as wet can warp a bit. Glue stick would work well as would tape.

Aren't they just the coolest! I was seriously tempted to leave them like this and just attach a typed address label but I knew I'm loathe to use address labels as I'm usually too lazy. True story. 

So... an additional optional step...

Add a spot for writing in the address

1. Paint a rectangle with a thin coat of gesso. 

In this case every poster is different so I tried to pick a spot that saved the best part of the image.

2. Let the gesso dry completely. 

3. Embellish the spaces, making a frame for the address.

I drew rough sketchy rectangles, circles, ovals or hearts with a black pen and let the ink dry. Then I colored the frames with neon sharpie and gel pens and added doodles like scallops and checkerboards. Nothing about this project is perfect, straight or precious - it's fun, fast, easy and very rock n roll

And now I have 20 envelopes that I can't wait to send in the mail. 

Speaking of, I'm 41 today. To celebrate, leave me a comment if you'd like one of these envelopes filled with ephemera and I'll pick a few of you to send mail to. xxx

Thanks so much for stopping by!

Warmly,

~~~~Nicole

Make Your Own Mailer

I needed a bubble mailer but didn't have the right size so...

Now my normal yellow purchased ones don't look very interesting :-)

Valentine Curio Box featuring Gelli Prints and a Tutorial

When I saw Christy's awesome mixed-media curio box I was inspired to pull mine out and finally make something. Valentine's Day seemed like a perfect topic as love is celebrated year round so it can stay out and not look too theme-y.

This project was a great way to use some of my favorite Gelli prints that I shared in my last posts here and here.

Here's a close up of some of the cells:

The edges were a perfect way to highlight some of my favorites:

And here's the back, I just loved this print and wanted to make sure it had the chance to shine:

One of the fun things Christy did was make a foil heart. I loved her tutorial but I've always made mine a little differently so I thought I'd share my process. Basically, the difference is that I cover my foil with masking tape and then gesso it instead of trying to Mod Podge paper to the foil. To be honest, I haven't had any luck doing that - I'm all thumbs. Masking tape makes it easy :-)

Ta-Da! 

Your very own light-weight, practically-free, custom, mixed-media embellishment.

Or if you want to watch the video, here's a link: http://vine.co/v/bJUF06giIh2

(OMG! Vine is a hoot, no? Look me up there so we can hang out.)

Available on Etsy

Linked up at Tatertots and Jello