Watercolor Thank You Cards

The Crafty Crow featured a blog called Inspireco on her What Girls Are Made of post. Inspireco showcased a simple technique for recreating those Just Add Water watercolor books you remember from your childhood. I thought I would give it a shot for Em's Thank You cards. Her birthday is coming up in August.

I drew a picture of Elmo on a folded piece of card stock with a Sharpie. Inspireco recommends you use water color paper - I did not have any - more on that later. You can also print your image onto watercolor paper. Cool!






















Color in using watercolor pencils. You do not have to color the entire picture in. Inspireco instructs you to color around the edges. It looked weird when I did that so I colored in the entire picture very roughly.

















Paint with water. This is where the watercolor paper comes in handy. The card stock buckled and didn't look so hot. Plus all the colors got muddy from my coloring in the picture too much. I can't believe I momentarily forgot my kiddos were not going to paint in neat little sections.

















The girls were absolutely thrilled by them and the whole painting water and seeing what happened process. I don't love how they came out but have to suppress my need for them to be perfect. In the end I am glad I tried the technique and may revisit this again with some watercolor paper.