Do you ever find yourself in need of quick DIY cards? Let’s make some!
Let me share with you what inspired this drawing challenge. 🙂
I was invited to a kid’s Birthday party (if you are a parent, you know that birthday parties are an inevitable part of parenting, haha). I had enough brain-space to organize the gifts, and even wrap them (feeling a little proud of myself). But then… I realized I did not have a card!
No way I was going to drive to a store just for a card.
I literally had 5 minutes to whip up something that a 4-year-old would appreciate… Hello DIY cards!!!
I decided to go with a fun (read = easy to draw) colorful candy theme that any kid would appreciate.
So this was my inspiration for this pop up drawing challenge.
DIY Cards Challenge Rules
Here is how we ran this challenge. I did a livestream in our Facebook group each morning to share ideas and drawing prompts. And then I uploaded the livestream recordings here on the blog, so you can always find them. 🙂
Day 1: sketch ideas
Day 2: add some color
Day 3: add text and decorations
Follow along! And share your efforts on Facebook and Instagram with this hashtag: #MyQuickCard
Day 1 – Sketch Ideas
Day 2 – Add Color
Day 3 – Finishing Touches
How to Paint Kawaii in Watercolor
Join my watercolor workshop to learn the foundational skills of painting with watercolor!
My DIY Cards from This Challenge
Here are the sketches and drawings I came up with. You can see the creative process in the videos above.
I started by sketching out 4 different designs for the DIY cards. At first I fell in love with the candle design (see below), but then decided to go with the cupcake design based on your feedback. Actually, I do think the cupcake is the cutest and will make the recipient of the card the happiest. Thank you so much for your input! That’s why it’s better to create together. 🙂
I’ll include the other 3 versions I considered below the winning design.
Here is the final card with colors and decorations:
The other 3 versions I considered:
Student Gallery
More Ideas and Inspirations
My creative process always starts with research. So here are a few ideas to get started with DIY cards.
One idea is to have a beautiful and unique (cause EVERY watercolor wash comes out unique) background with letters over it. Super easy and quick!
You can paint in the watercolor background (as shown in this video):
Or you can use a plastic bag trick to create a fast, easy, and fail-proof watercolor background. The lady in this video uses markers to add the colors, but you can simply drip a few drops of watercolor onto the plastic bag for the same effect:
Another idea is to drop a few blobs of color and then add doodle designs over them. I love doodle flowers, and I love how this effect looks. So easy!
These are a few ideas to get you started. And we’ll practice more of a kawaii take on them in our challenge.
So excited to do this with you!!
