Watercolour and doodle cards

I have had so much fun recently getting a watercolour effect just using regular kids colouring pens then doodling over the top when they were dry.

I'd seen on Instagram a few people using Tombow pens as watercolours and it got me to wondering if those regular, inexpensive felt pens the kids had loads of over the years for colouring would work to. What I discovered is, that if they are the ones that say they wash out of clothes, then yes, they do - huzzah!  I do have a pack pf pastel coloured Tombow's as well and I can confirm they work really nicely too. 

To make your own watercolour and doodle cards you need: Washable felt pens A fine line permanent pen - mine is a sharpie Paint brush Watercolour paper A card blank & envelope

For the mandala cards I started by drawing round a tin lid, then filling in concentric circles with colours of your choice.

Then wet it with your paint brush until it's all smudged, the colour will start to spread immediately but your circle will still be pretty "line-y"

Leave it to dry, after about an hour mine looked like this:

Nice, but still a bit lined. At this point I thought it wasn't going to work with the cheaper pens.

Next morning when it had completely dried I was super pleased to see the lines had almost disappeared. Now you are ready to doodle with your fine pen. Mine is a sharpie but i think other fine liners would work too. These ones I did freehand, you can see they are a little wonky but I'm not unhappy with that look. 

You can see my tutorial about drawing more symmetrical mandalas here if you want some more ideas. 

Next I simple cut them out and glued them onto card blanks.

Next I tried a more rectangular shape of felt pen 'watercolour' and drew feathers on top.

I added the greetings with stamps.

There are no step by step photos here but they are done in exactly the same as the mandala ones. Scribble with the water soluble felt pens, wet with the paint brush and then leave to dry completely.
Then doodle whatever you fancy. I did feathers filled with doodle but I'm thinking they could easily be tweaked into leaves.

The colours don't blend quite perfectly but I love that you can get this effect with something as simple as a kids felt pen or two.

I do have some bits and pieces of actual water colour and some water soluble colouring pencils that I had as a teenager (never throw anything away that might be useful!) so I'm going to do some more experimenting soon. 

There are millions of ideas online for zentagling and doodling (I have a board on pinterest if you want some more inspiration). If you are not feeling very artistic then you could use stamps, but honestly the doodling doesn't have to be complicated to look pretty. It's all about overall effect rather than expert drawing - have fun! 

Themed Mandala Greeting Cards

If you can draw a really simple cartoon or doodle then you could make Mandala style birthday cards in a theme to suit the birthday person.

This post has been a long time in the making. Way back in January I shared how to draw mandala designs for greeting cards and then a rare thing happened, I got all organised and ahead of myself and made cards for our kids for their 2016 birthdays.
This time I picked a theme from something they like and used that for the basis of the design.
I've had to wait all year until all their birthdays passed before I can share the idea with you!

First was this Star Wars themed card for our Star Wars super fan son. He has many other fandoms too but I really wanted to do a mandala with loads of little Yoda heads so that was that!

If you look closely, the doodles are VERY simple versions of the iconic Star Wars symbols, space ships and characters. I am a doodler not a great artist.

The words are basically all my favourite Star Wars quotes (and quotes from his favourite bits too of course!) 

• Help me Obi-Wan Kenobi, you're my only hope
• When 900 years old you reach, look as good you will not
• These aren't the droids you are looking for
• I love you. I know
• I find your lack of faith disturbing
• You were the chosen one (oh the feels!!!)
• He's holding a thermal detonator
• That's no moon
• No, I am your father

I also wanted to include "Not if anything to say about it I have" but there just wasn't space in the end :-(

Next in the year was our oldest son's birthday and for him I did an Superhero themed card. He is also into all sorts of other things that I know nothing about so I thought it was best to pick a theme that I am at least a bit familiar with. Initially I thought it would be an Avengers theme but when I ran out of ideas that were simple enough* I extended it out to a more general superhero theme.

Again for the words I just picked out my (and his hopefully) favourite quotes:

• I think our first move should be calling the Avengers
• With great power comes great responsibility
• I'm always angry
• The price of freedom is high
• Like the old man says - together
• Baskin-Robbins always finds out
• Hulk smash?
• By Odin's beard
• Genius Billionaire Playboy Philanthropist
• I'm multitasking
• I am burdened with glorious purpose
• Is the sun come up?
• We're just like Kevin Bacon

Last in the year, but actually the first I made, was this Harry Potter themed card for our daughter. She is a massive HP fan so picking this theme was a no brainer.

The words are "always" (again, the feels!!) and the rest are spells and of course no unforgivable ones.

To make one you just need to research your theme and start doodling.
Practice the elements first on scrap paper and simplify everything*
Check out the X wings and Yodas on the Star wars card to see what I mean by simplifying.
You really don't need to be super artistic (just see my lion in the Hogwarts shield above!) It's much more about creating a recognisable nod to each item rather than a work of art. 
The mandala is built up in the same way as I set out in my How to draw Mandala Cards tutorial.

You'll need a square shaped card blank, a compass to draw circles, a soft pencil and a decent eraser and then whatever pens you want to draw with. I used a black fine liner and just regular kids colouring felt pens. These cards were a bigger size than the other mandala cards I'd made, they are about 20cm(8") square. 

This whole thing was totally inspired by a fellow member of Dawn Nicole Designs Art & Hand-lettering Class Facebook Group. Dawn does a daily challenge which I have dabbled in now and again. She give a word prompt for hand-lettering or doodling and everyone shares their attempts. On Jan 1st 2016 the prompt was Mandala. I started drawing them and just couldn't stop - hence turning them into cards - and one talented member shared a Harry Potter themed mandala they had created. I took her brilliant idea and ran with it! After asking the group for help I've been able to find that is was a talented Photographer called Robyn, you can find her facebook page here to check out her photography and digital scrapbooks. 
If you like hand-lettering and art then this is a fabulous group to join. There are members from all over the world and they are so talented, friendly and supportive. As well as the daily prompts there are discussions about equipment, hints and tips etc. 

Have I sparked your imagination? What themed mandala card you could make for someone special?

Ideas for your colouring pages

Have you got involved in the colouring in craze? Do you love all these beautiful colouring pages and books for adults around these days? So many gorgeous designs but what do you do with them after you've coloured them in?

I was given a colouring book/diary for Christmas last year, it seemed like a genius idea, a week to colour each page, but my felt pens all leaked through to the other side like mad and I quickly had to decide - diary or colouring book? It couldn't be both.

I bought another diary and carried on with the colouring, just now and again when I had a minute (mostly sitting at the kitchen table whilst the dinner is in the oven. My colouring is not especially neat so no looking too closely!)
I thought it would be nice to use them rather than just leaving them in the book so I've had fun finding things to do with colouring pages.

Greeting Cards

This is an easy one, use the whole design and just trim it to fit a card blank:

I just added some black outlines with a fine liner to part of this design and glued on some sequins.

You can write a message somewhere in the design like this:

Or you can cut up the finished page and just use part of it:

1. This page is pretty but not spectacular
2. Draw a number or letter in pencil and cut out with scissors or a craft knife
3. Edge the card blank with one of the colouring pens you used in the design by putting it on scrap paper and then wizzing along the edge with your coloured marker pen
4. Glue the number or letter onto the card blank, add a few punched shapes too if you like

Gift wrap

If your pages are big or the gift small I guess you could just use your coloured page as gift wrap.
Maybe you could make a gift bag with it?

This gift was a mug that came in it's own sturdy plain box so it was easy to cut or punch out and glue on parts of a colouring page. 

I even had enough to make a little gift tag, by cutting out a tag shape and glueing it onto card.

The other ideas I was thinking of but haven't actually tried yet are:

• Decorating a note book

Cut the coloured page to size and glue it on. Cover with clear sticky backed plastic if you want to make it super durable or if you are really messy!

• Making bookmarks

Cut your coloured pages into strips and glue onto coloured card, add a tassel maybe?

• Turning it into art

If you have one that is especially lovely it would be nice to just frame it and put it on the wall?

Have you found any other lovely ways to use colouring pages?

  

You might also be interested in:

Dictionary Page Card

Circle card Crazy

Photo Name Birthday Card

How to draw Mandala Greeting Cards

I'll be linking up this project at these lovely link parties.