love forever: Making it: Watercolor Striped Cards

April 05, 2012

Making it: Watercolor Striped Cards

Welcome to the first of what I hope will be many DIY projects on my blog!

I've been a bit of a nut for watercolors lately so I've been playing with a bunch of different techniques. So when 3M sent me a few rolls of their Scotch Blue painter's tape to craft around with, I came up with this very simple technique for decorating greeting cards. So let's get started!

You will need:
Premade blank cards (or cardstock to make cards)- make sure it's thick enought o handle watercolor
Self healing cutting mat
Craft knife
Ruler
Painter's tape
Watercolor paints
Small paint brush
Containers with water for your paints
Newspaper to protect your work surface
Decorative washi tape (optional but awesome!)

Step 1: Tear off a piece of tape a couple inches longer than your card and affix it to the self healing cutting mat. I love these mats because they have gridlines on them but if you don't have a cutting mat, you can use a piece of cardboard. Use your ruler and a craft knife to cut stripes in a range of widths.

Step 2: Carefully pull up all your tape stripes!

Step 3: Protect your work surface with some newspaper and affix your tape stripes to your card as desired. Make sure they are well sealed to the card and there isn't any bubbling in the tape. Start painting in between the tape stripes. I chose a palette of blues. Don't worry about perfection with the painting- it actually looks much cooler when the stripes look more like a wash of color.

Step 4: When you are finished painting and happy with your colors, let the paint dry for a few minutes and...

Step 5: Start pulling up your tape stripes!!

Step 6: If you would like to, add stripes vertically to the card as well. For this, I chose a palette of greens. It results in sort of a plaid effect.

If you want, add stripes of washi tape too!I loved this for the contrast from the wash of the watercolors to the intense pop of the tape. There are about a million variations to these designs. Add stripes on a diagonal, experiment with the width of stripes, the colors of the stripes...go wild!