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

Easy Valentine's Floats and Other ideas

"Cupid Cocktails" were very popular with my crew. 

They have SUPER-LOW standards as we don't really celebrate Valentine's Day unless my mom makes me feel guilty about it :-)

(this was a year ago, he's grown up so much!)

Edit: and now this year:

For the more ambitious among you:

Romantic Date Night at Home

My favorite Valentine's image:

And my Valentine's wish for you:

print available

Valentine's Popcorn Crunch Treat

This is SO good. Like make it tonight, good. 

I decided to make this instead of the usual Valentine's Day candy and baking and my kids all said we need to make this a tradition - high praise indeed.

The recipe is an adaptation of Cupid Crunch by Plain Chicken. That recipe looked AMAZING but way too sweet for our families taste. This is more savory and less intense.

Valentine's Popcorn Crunch Treat

1 (24 oz) package vanilla Almond Bark 

3 bags of  microwave popcorn, popped (We used Pop Secret Butter and it was AWESOME. I don't think this would work very well with regular air popped popcorn)

1 1/2- 2 cups cups Pretzels

1 1/2 cup dry roasted, salted peanuts

1 1/2 cups M&Ms (Valentine colors) I used most of a large bag.

Pop popcorn and place in a (very) large bowl. Be careful of kernels, you don't want to break your teeth. I avoided kernels by transferring the popcorn a handful at a time (claw style) so any kernels would fall to the bottom and not end up in the food.

  Pour peanuts, pretzels, and M&Ms on top.

Chop up almond bark. Melt. Pour over popcorn mixture. Stir until everything is well coated.

 Spread out onto waxed paper covered baking sheets (or your counter). Let sit until completely dry and then break up into clumps.

Seriously, make this. It's so good! It also makes great little gifts packaged up in a cellophane bag.

And if you like yours more candy and less crunch be sure to check out the original recipe. 

Dark Chocolate and Whiskey Cupcakes: Cake # 48

Would you believe I made these last Valentine's Day and never blogged them. 

Shame on me. Let me make it right.

Dark Chocolate and Whiskey Cupcakes

For the Cake:

 2 cups all purpose flour

3/4 cup cocoa powder

2 cups brown sugar

2 tsp. baking soda

1 tsp. baking powder

1 tsp. kosher salt

2 eggs

1/2 cup strong coffee

1/2 cup Jack Daniels Whiskey

1 cup buttermilk

1/2 cup vegetable oil

Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.

In a large bowl, stir the flour, cocoa powder, sugar, baking soda, baking powder, and salt.

In a separate bowl, combine the eggs, coffee, whiskey, buttermilk and oil.

 Pour the egg mixture into the flour mixture and whisk until smooth. 

Spoon the mixture into prepared cupcake wrappers. Bake for about 18-20 minutes until the tops spring back when lightly pressed. 

For the Dark Chocolate Whiskey Ganache:

16 ounces good quality dark chocolate chips

3/4 cup heavy cream

2 Tbsp. butter, softened

1/4 cup Jack Daniels Whiskey

Melt and stir. 

Chill in the fridge while the cupcakes bake and cool.

Cut out centers from your cupcakes. You can use a cupcake tool or a knife. If using a knife, I recommend cutting out a cone shape - it's easier.

Give your ganache a little stir. Set aside 2 cups of ganache for the frosting.

 See how thick it set up. Yummy!

Fill the cupcake centers with ganache.

Now for the frosting. Most recipes I've seen call for even more Jack Daniels in the frosting but I tasted the cake (centers are made for snacking) with some ganache and it was PLENTY whiskey enough for my tasts. These are not subtle cupcakes folks. So I DID NOT add more JD. I stuck with plain chocolate.

Dark Chocolate Whiskey Buttercream

1 lb. butter, softened

1- 3 ounce package white chocolate, vanilla or cheesecake instant pudding mix

2 cups Dark Chocolate Whiskey ganache

1/2 cup sifted dark cocoa powder

1/2 cup heavy cream

1/2 cup powdered sugar

more whiskey to taste

Instructions:

Beat the butter and pudding mix together on medium high speed for about 5 minutes.

Add ganache, cocoa powder and heavy cream.  Beat for another 5 minutes.

Add powdered sugar a little bit at a time, to taste, and beat for at least 5 more minutes. 

(Seriously! For frosting? This is eternal!)

*Add whiskey 1 TBL at a time until you love the flavor.

Wow. Never made a frosting even close to this fluffy before. I'm impressed. Fine. 

Review: I found theses to be very strong on the whiskey flavor but the chocolate wasn't as prominent in the cake itself. The ganache and the frosting more than made up for the deficit but I like my cake to be really flavorful and the flavor was mostly whiskey. Perhaps if I'd skipped the JD in the ganache and in the frosting it would have been a bit more balanced. If you have a whiskey lover in your life these will be a huge hit.

A side note, I also found these to be a bit too oily and rich. It could be the high elevation that I bake at, or it could be all the fat in the recipe (cake, ganache and frosting is certainly 'special occasion'). Either way, when I make them again I'll be replacing half the oil with applesauce. I might fill them with something lighter too - like a custard.

Overall: I'd give them a B. It's been a year and I haven't reached for the recipe again but I have kept them in mind when I've wanted a sophisticated dessert.

Recipe adapted from several sources most of which referenced Fields of Cake.

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