My mother’s birthday came hard on the heels of Mother’s Day, so it was the perfect opportunity to make another watercolour card from the March My Greeting Box!
My mother has lots of pot plants in her conservatory, so I thought this Splatter design looked very appropriate. It didn’t actually say ‘happy birthday’ but I didn’t think that mattered. I didn’t want to risk my less-than-perfect lettering writing it in, so I thought I’d stick with the ‘hello’.
The first thing to do was to tape down the watercolour paper. I had a piece the right size left over from the first watercolour card I made, so no measuring necessary (yet!). The paint effect was made my first soaking the paper with water, then watering down a tiny bit of paint (in the bowl) and applying it to the acrylic block.
The paintbrush was then flicked against the edge of the block to make splatters on the paper. This was really rather fun! It took longer than I expected to cover the whole of the paper, and I had to add more watered paint.
After a quick rinse of the bowl I did the same with the blue and green paints.
The instructions say to allow it to dry, then add more splatters to give a different effect. Now, I don’t think I added enough water to the blank paper at the beginning, because I suspect it didn’t give the right effect. You can see on the left side of the paper that some of the splatters are kind of big and slightly blotchy. That part of the paper was much wetter than the rest. Most of my splatters were landing on paper that was a little too dry to make those more spread out splotches.
But hey, I still think the effect looks lovely, and it’s something I can remember for next time!
While the splattered paper was drying I decided to make the little flower accents.
I love these flower stamps! (In fact I love them so much I used them in my bullet journal this month.) For the colouring I used my lovely Zebra midliner highlighters again, plus my trusty Staedtler fineliners. I didn’t do the exact same colours as on the instructions, but they were quite similar.
The cutting out is probably the hardest part. I’m seriously considering buying some of those special scissors for very fiddly cutting out work.
There was also the yellow strip for the sentiment to cut out and stamp. I actually ended up doing again on the other side, because after I took the picture I noticed that I’d stamped the same side as my pencil guidelines for cutting the strip. Oops.
Anyway, by the time the flowers were done the paint was also dry. I trimmed the watercolour sheet down and cut out the blue backing. The flowers were to be stuck on with foam tape. It gives a lovely 3-D effect, but it’s a bit of a pain to work with as I find it likes to stick to my fingers at the worst possible moment.
Fortunately it behaved itself, and everything was stuck down without incident.
The final touch was sticking on some little flower sequins. (As I’ve written before, I like to use those tweezers for sequins, but it’s not essential.)
And there’s the finished card! This picture was taken in the conservatory, and you may just be able to see some pot plants in the background.
I thoroughly enjoyed making this card, and I’ve also learned some things. For example, when the instructions say ‘soak the paper with water’ it means really soak it!
I really like the process of creating these cards, it’s both soothing and incredibly satisfying. This a design I’m going to do again, and see if I can get the two different splatter effects more accurately next time.
I really recommend My Greeting Box. It’s such a pleasure to be able to create such lovely cards, and then give them to people you love. The instructions are pretty much idiot-proof too.
I love how this card looks! And my mother loved it too.
It’s my best friend’s birthday soon, so I’ll be making another card in the next couple of days. I can’t wait!
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Click here to see reviews of previous boxes and more of the cards I’ve made!
