My first attempt at homemade Valentines.
For Valentine’s Day this year I decided to make my own cards. Hallmark can do it… how hard can it be? I was hoping my family would be forgiving. Or at least kind with their comments. (Insert wink here).
I’m still experimenting and learning with the Tim Holtz Distress Inks and really enjoying the play! I like the look created when using them with stencils and wanted to add the water element to see what I could do. The results were not disappointing.
As my oldest son has a girlfriend I got to play with pinks and flowers…and glam, something I have little experience with as a mom of boys. I used a stencil on watercolor paper with distress inks in pinks and reds. A foam dauber was my go to tool to pick up the ink from a non-stick mat and apply over the rose stencil. After building up color to my satisfaction, I used a Tim Holtz spray bottle to mist the entire paper with the stencil still applied. After removing the stencil I used a heat gun to speed up the drying process (because I’m impatient) The color was great. Just as I’d hoped, but it needed a little oomph (I’m sure that’s a technical term). Clear Wink of Stella on the rose areas of the stencils was just the ticket.
After trimming the now dry decorated watercolor paper down to 4 X 5 1/4 inches I adhered it to a top folding standard card in red cardstock. A couple popped up decorated hearts at the bottom of the rose upped the glam level. I gave it just one more bit of sparkle (can you really have too much?) by adding some glaze to the lettering on one heart, and adhering a few red rhinestones and clear sequins.
The pink and red glam card was a great warm up, but what to do for a masculine Valentine card? Loving the stencil idea I used a more manly mandala style stencil with blue and purple distress inks instead of pinks. This time I added water to the inks on my mat before daubing onto the stencil which kept the colors a bit darker. The kraft hearts I wanted to use as embellishments had red on them and to tie that in I sprayed the finished mandala with a red glimmer mist (I’m using my stash). I trimmed my finished creation off-center and slightly smaller than the kraft base which allowed for greater variation and interest. It also left room for the kraft hearts adhered with pop dots. More masculine, but the love was still implied.
I did not tell my children the cards I sent were handmade by their mother, however, I heard from them all how impressed they were with my effort. A proud moment! It was either that, or the $20 bill I slipped inside! But still…Grateful for them AND their compliments. I’m one lucky momma!!!
Bits of Bonnie 