Make a "Things I Love About Coffee" Card

Long ago*, on a Google+ post, I was once told, "you need to make that into a card ASAP."*  Referring to:

via

*October 1, 2015
**Yes, I actually went and found that particular post on Google+ where that was said to me, so that I could type the words verbatim.  Which is why I also know the exact date of the transaction.

To which I replied that I would think about it, even though I don't drink coffee.  And so I did!  For nine months, I thought about it, until I finally made it a few weeks ago!

Of course, I didn't make it exactly like the original work, because, well, I don't know how?  Or I can't let myself make something the same as another has already made it?  What can I say?  I'm an artist.  I like to "make it my own," as people say.

Supplies for My Card
White cardstock card, roughly 7 inches tall by 4-1/4 inches wide
Slightly smaller piece of white cardstock
Lined paper (to copy)
Extra fine black Sharpie
Three mugs stamp (any mug stamp would work, or simply draw a mug, as in the original)
Black stamp ink
Brown stamp ink
Doily (can't get away from 'em!)
Silver eyelets

Now, all that looks like an awful lot of supplies.  I make things complicated like that.  But you can see from the original, that it really is not that complicated.  So, if you want, here are the supplies for the original card.

Supplies to Make the Original Card (Which Happens to Be Much Easier)
White cardstock card, same size as mine
Lined paper (to copy)
Extra fine black Sharpie

Wow.  So much shorter, amiright?  But I'm here to tell you how I made the card, not how to easily and quickly make it, like the original!  (Two totally different matters, you see.)  So let's get on wit' it.

You see the lined paper in the above picture?  I wanted to have lined paper in the card, because that's what the original had, so I copied a piece of lined paper onto a piece of cardstock, and made sure it printed in black and white.

But, alas, I was not satisfied.  For some reason...I didn't like that it was so...straight!  (Strange, for the OCD-ish person that I am.)  So, I re-copied it, but this time, I crookedinized (totally a word) the lined paper in the machine, so it printed out crooked!  (Note: to make it even better, you could crumple it up and then flatten again before copying.  I didn't even think of that when I was making it.)

Then I cut out a piece of the lined cardstock, just a wee bit smaller than the card base.  At the top, I wrote, "THINGS I LOVE ABOUT COFFEE."

This is the scribbled list of things to love about coffee, that I copied from the original.

Using the list, I wrote each point on the card, along with, "THINGS I LOVE ABOUT YOU" down at the bottom!

I didn't care if I messed up, since it was supposed to look all hand-written and stuff.

Here's the mug stamp and the black ink I used.

I inked it only partway, because that's all I would need at this point.

Then I stamped it down in the open area near the bottom right corner, and also up in the top left corner, after I inked the other side of the stamp.  Make sure to have a piece of scrap paper underneath when stamping off the edge like this.

And then I stamped the heart stamp in black in the top right corner, left middle-ish, and bottom right-ish.  I also re-stamped the hearts in brown, over top the black hearts.

That's when I realized that I missed the "coffee" in the second point.  I freaked out a little in my brain at first, but then I remembered:  It is okay.  And I just added it back in with an arrow!

Now it's time to use another doily!  To make this doily brown, I just rubbed it all over with my brown ink pad.  Usually it annoys me that it's such a light brown, but it worked spiffily for this!

Line it up along the top right edge, and with the edge of your scissors, score a line along the edge of the paper.  That's where you'll cut it.

Do the same for the bottom left corner.

Now all we need to finish up this card is a few eyelets!  I used eight silver eyelets in all.

Punch the holes, insert the eyelets, glue the panel onto the card base, and you're done!

I thought it looked a little busy, and still think that, but again, I'm deciding not to worry about it.  Can you think of any other points that could go on this card?

Wouldn't this be adorable to send to a coffee lover?  Do YOU like coffee?  How do you like to drink it?

P.S.!  Ooh, I am sooo so so excited about this!  Jennie Moraitis' PAPERBACK book, The Creative Retreat, is out, and I was SO excited to find it waiting for me in its pretty pink package when I got home from camp!  And do you know what's exciting about it?!  (Many things, but one of them is this.)  I'm IN it!  I am so honored to know Jennie enough  that she would ask me to be a contributor to her book.  Learn more about the book HERE!

Make a Springy Watercolor Card

Do y'all remember when I guest posted for Jennie at Little Girl Designs?  Welp, I hope you enjoyed it, because I get to re-share that post with you today!

That was back in the Spring time, so this card was fitting.  Now, we're approaching Fall already (don't know whether to cry or jump for joy), and this card doesn't really match the season, but it's okay.  Someone could use a Spring card any time of year!

Supplies
White cardstock
Molotow art masking liquid pump marker (what I have) or liquid frisket
Watercolor paper
Watercolors
Tissue paper
Sticker maker (if you have one)
Extra-fine light pink marker (I prefer sharpies)
Liquid glue (I specify liquid, because that's what I use and prefer, but really you could use whatever type of glue you want that actually works; I don't think glue sticks work well)

If I was making this card in the most efficient manner, I would do the masking liquid part first, so that it could dry while I cut out circles, but that's not actually the order I did it in, so I won't organize this tutorial in that way.

The first thing I did was cut out three circles from white cardstock.  The circles should be of varying sizes.  They need not be exactly the size of mine, but to give you an idea of how big each should be, my biggest circle has about a 2-3/4 inch diameter, the middle about a 1-3/4 inch diameter, and the smallest a 1-1/8 diameter.

That being said, I think it might look a little better if the biggest circle was a bit smaller, and it probably wouldn't hurt if the middle circle was a little smaller too.  To get the circle shapes, I traced around various circular objects I found in my room, which you could do, or you could use a compass.  Either would work.

I set the circles aside, and got out my trusty art masking liquid.  Liquid frisket was on my Christmas list, but instead I got this stuff, which seems to work just fine!

Before drawing with the pump marker onto watercolor paper, we need to cut out the watercolor paper first, of course!  I cut mine to 2 inches by 4-1/2 inches.  I think it actually would look a little better if it was slightly smaller, but it works fine.

After that's cut to size, we can start on the fun stuff!  The first time I made this card (nope, this isn't the first time), I wrote the words, "HEY, YOU," in the same font as I did here.  In other words, all caps, and with the scallop border too.  Wait for that to dry before heading onto watercoloring.

This is one of my favorite parts because it's fun, easy, and beeyoooootiful.  For the watercoloring, I usually, without wetting the paper first, start with pink (not sure why - you certainly don't have to!), dab it in the top left corner and then dab on the orange, and then light orange, and just go back and forth between those three, until it's all covered!

My art teacher has talked about this thing that happens with watercolors, called a blossom.  It just means that when you paint an area and it dries and then you go back and continue painting, it will be obvious where you left off, because there will be a sort of mark.  A lot of times when painting a picture, blossoms are bad, but with things like this, I think blossoms are a good thing, and I love the way they look!

After that's all dry, you can rub off the masking liquid to reveal the white of the paper!  Because of this, feel free to go kind of dark with the watercolors so when you rub off the stuff, there will be an obvious difference.

Note: When I used this masking liquid for the first time, I thought you were suppose to peel it off when it was dry (because that's what the directions say to do), so I got quite frustrated when it wasn't working.  After a while I just started rubbing it out of frustration, and was overjoyed to find it came off!  So if you get this stuff for the first time and it doesn't work to peel, then rub.

I have a mesh drawer under my desk full of tissue paper that I've collected over the years.  I don't use it that often, but it certainly comes in handy!  To stay with the color scheme of pink and orange, I used orange, light pink, and hot pink.  These will be used to cover the circles we cut out earlier.  Hot pink for the biggest, light pink for the middle, and orange for the smallest.

Cut out a square from each color, that is each a little bigger than the circle it will cover.  Carefully insert each square of tissue paper into your sticker maker and roll until they emerge out the other side!  Individually peel each piece from the backing, and stick the circle on.  I like to leave part of the tissue paper still on the backing while I stick on the circle, because it curls up really easily, and is difficult to uncurl because of the stickiness.

Note: Of course it is not hard or time consuming to erase the pencil lines around the circles, but if you want to eliminate that step, be sure to lay the circle down on the tissue paper with the marked side facing you, not the tissue paper, so it doesn't show through.  Especially do that if you used a pen!

Once the circle is safely on the tissue paper, pull the leftover down on the back.  I like to do it in a nice orderly fashion, but who cares - no one's going to see it!

If you don't have a sticker maker, perhaps you could squirt some liquid glue on your finger (or the circles) and rub it all over the circles and then stick on the tissue paper squares.

I had my blank card set aside this whole time.  Once all the previous steps are done, you can go around the edge of the card with a light pink marker and roughly draw a border with scallops.  Don't try to make it perfect.  In fact, try not to make it perfect!

I always like to put together all the parts of my card before gluing everything in place, so I know exactly what it'll look like, and can do any last minute touches.

When you have your circles in place as shown above, you can go around them with the scallop border like you did around the edge of the card.

Now adhere the circles in place, and put the sentiment over top!  If you do have a sticker maker, you could use that again here for the circles and sentiment, and it would make everything even more secure than liquid glue would.  I didn't because I don't like to use up my sticker maker cartridge if liquid glue works fine.

And it's done!  Since this is such a Spring-y card, I love the way it looks with the pretty flowers in the background.  :)  Now go make one of your own, and knock your pen-pal's socks off!

Heheh, this was one of the first pictures I took of this card.  Isn't it fab?

Have you ever used liquid frisket or this Molotow stuff I have?

How to Use a Doily to Create a Pair of Elegant Watercolor Cards

What a fun idea, right?  But wait, I haven't shown you what I'm talking about yet - all you know is that it involves a doily and watercolors, correct?  Well, you probably know a little more, because that picture up above is pretty self-explanatory.

When I saw this on Pinterest, I certainly did not need a whole blog post length tutorial!  Nevertheless, I shall provide you with one, because I'm going to show you how to use a doily in two ways, which means I will be showing you how to make two cards today!

Supplies
Doily
Watercolors
Watercolor paper
Watercolor brush
Water
Sharpie
Beads
Fabric flower
Hot glue
Cut out "thank you" (or other sentiment)(I used my die cut)

Card No. 1
First I cut out a piece of watercolor paper with about a half inch margin from the edges of the card.  Then I positioned a doily where I wanted it, sort of in the top left corner.

When watercoloring things like this, I always like to do use multiple colors that coordinate well together, so I used turquoise, light blue, and dark blue.  I started with turquoise, just dabbing the paint on with my brush, and using lots of water, and then I added the other colors, and went back and forth between the three until all the spaces (and the rest of the paper) were filled!  For now, you don't need to paint the center of the doily; we'll get to that later.

This picture shows the doily and paper after being painted.  Do not move the doily until you've finished painting!
See that big splotch at the bottom right of the circle?  I must have put too much paint in that spot, and it seeped through the doily.  But never fear; Brooklyn is here!  I can fix that with a fabric flower!

I have a box of fabric flowers and such things, and this yellow one I had is perfect for these cards.  This flower actually had six sections, so I used three for each card, and that worked well.  With a dark blue sharpie, I wrote "thank you" in the center of the doily-shaped empty space.

Here's one of my bags of beads, where I got the bead for the flower from.  That bead looks more black, but it has some blue in it, and I wanted kind of a dark bead for this card, to balance things out.

I thought the card needed something more, so I drew polka-dots over the whole card.

After that, I deemed it complete.  This is the final basic layout I came up with.  I decided to put the doily piece at an angle, since I thought it looked better that way, and I kind of wrote the sentiment crooked anyway.

I used hot glue for the flower, putting a little in between each section, and then a little on the underside to stick on the card.  Gluing everything on after I've figured out the layout is so satisfying!  Sometimes though, I think I've figured everything out, and then as I'm putting it together, I change something!  (I did not do that this time.)

Card No. 2
And now, we can paint the center of the doily!  These doilies are really neat, in that you can watercolor on them, and let it dry, and then come back later, and if there's a blossom, you can re-paint it.  There's some sort of coating.  It's not like watercolor paper, and it's not like regular paper (regular paper = copy paper).  So what I'm saying is, if you put too much paint in a section, or something, it's easy to spread it out with water.

I cut a piece of cardstock that measured 1/4 inch from each edge of the card, and outlined it in yellow sharpie, and did polka dots with the same sharpie, like I did for the other card.  I also used the other three sections of the flower.  Aaand (just one more thing!), I also used my "thank" and "you" die cuts for the sentiment, and I'm really happy with how it looks!

Since the sentiment for this card is white, not something dark, like the blue I used for the other card, I wanted to use a white bead for the center of the flower, so, from my bag of beads, I retrieved this nice, pearly white bead.  It works perfectly!  Now you can glue everything on, and that concludes both cards!

I really wanted to put the flower on the right side, like on the first card, but it just wouldn't look near as good with the tail of the "Y" hanging down like that.

What do you think of them?  I love how similar the two cards are, but at the same time, I love the differences between them.

I experimented with this back in March, but I just didn't get to posting about it until now!  This one is my favorite from back then.  Perhaps even my favorite doily card I've ever made!  (You can see more of these on my "Cards I've Made" page.)

Have you ever used a doily to create something?  What else could you make with a doily?

{P.S. Linking up here!}