DIY Holiday Cards: the Abstract Snowscape
Christmas cards don’t always have to be perfect. Family photos are nice and a newsletter is grand but sometimes the process can be a little more stressful than the season can handle. Personally, I think it’s fun to slow things down a little and create something beautiful and magical that you can enjoy while you’re doing it! On a quiet afternoon we decided to make some wintry snow scenes using a little watercolor paint and some glitter.
They aren’t realistic scenes. The lines are blurred and messy but if you squint your eyes just right, you can see a pretty snowy scene!
We started with some white card stock cut in half and then folded in half to make a card. Then we got out the inexpensive kids’ watercolor set and some brushes. We cut one of the cards into a curved snowdrift shape and used that as a mask like so:
I tried to make a window with another piece of cardstock too but it wasn’t all that effective. You can experiment with that idea if you like. We painted and painted, trying to keep our colors soft with lots of water and very little paint.
Of course my daughter had her own agenda and strayed from my wintry color palette of blues and purples but I let it go. Art is more fun if you let kids do what they will do and try not to interfere too much in the process. We also added salt to the wet paint on a few. That always creates a fun effect.
After we had painted dozens of cards we were ready to glitter!
Glitter gets such a bad rap these days. I don’t know why. It vacuums up easily and it never really hurt anyone. Just think of it this way: those little specks that get stuck to your fingers and hair and show up on your cheekbones when you least expect it are just little bits of magic fairy dust left behind to remind you of the fun project you worked on. It’s like not wanting to wash your car after a fun camping trip. Just let it go. Embrace the glitter, don’t be afraid of it. (Sorry, I just had to put that out there. I’ll get off my glittery soapbox now.)
To add glitter to your snow scenes just paint a line of white glue along the curve of your mountains.
Then shake shake shake your groovy glitter all over the lines of glue! An easy way to keep glitter mess to a minimum is to work on a cookie sheet. Then when you’re done you can slide all the excess glitter right back into its container and use it again next time!
See? So easy!
And when you’re done they are so pretty! Do you see the sparkling snow? No? Squint a little harder.
Add a festive saying and you’re done!
I know I’d smile if I got one of these in my mailbox.
