Mothers Quote and Mixed Mediums

So I know we just had Fathers' Day, but I thought it would be nice to share one more of my Mothers' Day projects because I liked the idea behind it and because...well, who doesn't love their mom all year round?  Right?  Right.  So here we are: mothers quote and mixed mediums.

I am apologizing in advance, as not many of the photos for this post turned out very bright or clear.  Not sure why, but let's blame it on the weather, right? ;) Kidding.

Items needed for the basics of this project are simple:

* Silhouette Sketch Pens (Or Cricut Color Inks. This can be done with a Cricut,  and though it would be trickier and likely have to be more piece-mealed together, the idea would be the same.)
* Watercolor Paint (I just used cheap Crayola watercolors--the kind you'd give to your kids--and they work great!)
* Watercolor paper (helps reduce the color bleeding when you paint)
* Computer Printer, if desired

To begin, I chose my quote: "Even if I didn't have you as my mother, I would choose you as my friend."  This is so true of how I feel about my mom.  She's just the best.  Then I made my design using Silhouette Studio so that I could play around with colors and spacing and get it just how I wanted it.

First design your piece using Silhouette Studio to adjust placing, colors estimations, etc.

I decided to use all sorts of different inking mechanisms for this particular piece, just to see how well they worked together, and in order to get the colors that I wanted (to match my mom's craft room. :) )


Once I had my design created, and had decided how I wanted each piece done (sketch pen, printer, etc.), I did my usual "delete the portion I don't want printed, sketched, etc." and then sent it through the correct machine. I try to delete them in order of which ones I'll be printing, sketching, etc. first to last, if that makes any sense.  It saves a bit of time when I go back and have to "undo" my deletions to get to the next portion for the next color or machine. So...

First, I deleted all portions of my design (after saving it, of course!) except the first portion of the quote. This was the portion I decided to print from my home printer,as I wanted solid, filled in letters.  I did this on a piece of water color paper.

The first part was sent through the printer for solid letters.

You can also see in the above picture how I played around with some of my different color sketch pens on a scratch piece of paper to see which exact colors I wanted to use for my design.

Next, I hit the "undo" button to re-reveal the next portion of the quote I wanted drawn, and deleted the portion I'd already done.  This just so happened to be the flower and the word "mother" using a hot pink and red sketch pen. By just hitting "delete" and "undo" it generally keeps my design being drawn exactly where I want it in proportion to the rest, even if I have to switch colors of pens part-way through. This is easier with your Silhouette than with your Cricut, because you know exactly where on the mat the image is going to be drawn. Still, you could certainly try something like this with your Cricut.

Take out your blade and insert your desired color of sketch pen.

This is after sending it through with the red and hot pink sketch pens.

After getting all of my words and images printed and drawn, I decided I wanted the word "as" to be colored-in, so I filled that in with the same color sketch pen used to draw it.  I haven't figured out how to make sketch pens fill in colored images yet, so for now, you will need to do that potion by hand. But you can always get creative with how you choose to do that...

Finished printed and sketched portion.

Once I had the entire quote printed and drawn, I cut the paper down to the determined size that I would be using (based off my design proportions in Silhouette Studio and the size of my picture frame). Then, I got out the watercolors. :)

For the watercolored flower, I simply used cheap Crayola watercolors that I once used for a silly and fun date in the park.  (We went and tried to do watercolors of the flowers in the park...we had fun, but note I'm not posting a picture of our art. :))  No need for anything fancier.  Your kids likely have some of these lying around, if not, they are just a few dollars at the grocery store or Wal Mart, and come with the paint brush included.

Using actual water color paper instead of computer paper helps keep the watercolors from bleeding too much.  Can try with cardstock as well. 

Use the mixed medium of Silhouette Sketch Pens and cheap watercolors to fill in the drawn image!

Again, note that I used watercolor paper.  You could try this with cardstock as well, but I wouldn't use plain computer paper, as the watercolors tend to bleed (spread out) pretty far beyond where you paint with that type of paper.  At least that was our experience on my fun date. :)

To add a few more fun dimensions to this gift, I actually used my Silhouette to cut the brown brackets out of paper and glued those on, and then did the same with the bee on the flower.  I wanted to have one more little pop, however, so I decided to use a product called "glossy accents" (which you can find at Hobby Lobby and other craft stores) on the bee to make it a little more three dimensional.
 

These extra touches may be more than you want to deal with for one simple project, and that is certainly up to you.  I just wanted to play around with a few different mediums to create this sign for my mother, and I feel like they complimented each other well.  I especially loved using the sketch pens to draw an intricate design and then using the watercolors to fill it in.  Loved that.  So whatever your feelings, I think you should really try mixing up some of these mediums.

Have you ever used anything to make your sketched designs "pop" or stand out even more?  I'd love to hear what you've tried! Leave a comment or send us an email: info@makeitscrappin.com.