Home made birthday card

Being a creative person I try to make most of my own cards.  I've got oodles of stuff from stamps, stencils, stickers, papers, card etc.  But sometimes I like to make a card with a free hand drawing for a unique touch.  I made the following card for the birthday person.

First I draw my design on watercolour paper using a fine black waterproof marker.

The paper is actually white but as I didn't use flash lighting when taking these photos, (I would have blinded you), it looks beige.

Then I use watercolour pencils to colour in the design.

You can see in the above photos that the drawing of the design and the colouring in process is quite rough.  This style of card is not about perfection, it's very free and easy.

These are the colours I used.

Now comes the fun part.  Using a fine watercolour brush, I dip the brush in water, wipe off the excess and proceed to paint, so to speak, water over the coloured in areas.

In this photo I have applied water to the base of the cake stand.  You can see how the colour intensifies.

I've added a few more details in the photo below.  Some more colour in the cake stand base and plate and defined the candles a bit more.  I've also added some background colours.

Now for the greeting.  This was somewhat more difficult as I find lettering hard to do.

The finished card.  Ta dahhhh!!!!!

Here are some other bits and pieces I've doodled and had fun with using the same technique.  (Click on images for a closer view.)

Thank you for taking a peek at one of the things I love to do.

Have a great day/evening.

Anne