Cheerio! DIY Watercolor cards with hole reinforcement stickers

This is a fun, easy, and fast card project. Just in time for Mother’s Day! I was trying think of things that I could use as stencils from around the house. I was eating breakfast and it came to me – Cheerios! Well, not the cereal, but those hole reinforcement sticker things that we all have lying around in the “everything” drawer. I thought it would be fun to make a card that reads “hi” to fit in with my “Cheerio!” theme. Read on for instructions and photos.

Supplies:
Hole reinforcement stickers
Watercolor paper (this will not work with regular paper as the hole reinforcements will adhere too strongly to the paper and tear it.)
Watercolor paints
Paintbrush
Water and paper towels for cleaning and drying brushes in between colors
Artists’ or masking tape
Ruler or pre-cut A6 card for determining masking tape frame dimensions (exact size of an A6 card is 4-5/8” x 6-1/4”)
Paper cutter or scissors
* You can also use watercolor notecards like the ones made by Strathmore. You won't need the artists' tape, ruler, or scissors if you use those.

1. Using a pre-cut A6 flat card or your ruler, lightly mark the shapes of 2 rectangles on your letter size sheet of watercolor paper.
2. Apply the artists’ or masking tape as a frame for each card shape.

3. Apply the hole reinforcement stickers. Have fun – you can be abstract or precise. I did both and made a card that reads “hi” and a card with a wavy circle pattern.

4. Paint the watercolors all over the cards. Experiment with different colors by blending subtle washes of paint. Keep in mind that brown is easily achieved by blending colors like red and green. A trick is to go in the order of a rainbow - blue to purple to red to orange to yellow to green and back to blue!

5. Wait about 20 minutes for the watercolors to dry and gently remove the tape and hole reinforcement stickers.

6. Using a paper cutter or scissors, cut out the individual cards.

7. Admire your new cards! In retrospect, I should have probably used darker colors for the “hi” card. I kind of like the subtly of the light wash though.