Faux Watercolour with Markers (& quilted envelope)

I wanted to make a special card & envelope for dear friends of ours who are getting married. The envelope turned out to be the most exciting part (to make anyway) because thanks to Noreen (aka Swedie but I think should be called Sweetie!) I have a Scorepal!!!! She sent it to me as a surprise (how sweet is that!?!) After opening it, I had a happy little cry at her extreme generosity and sweetness. (I'm still in shock I think!) Thank you Noreen! :0) Then I set straight to playing with it. Now I'm hooked. It was so easy to make this quilted envelope:

A little unusual to have so much colour on a wedding congrats card maybe, but they're extraordinary people & I wanted to have some colour on here to express how happy we are for them. The envelope just slides right off, so no need to untie all of those double knots.

Here's how the envelope looked before I tied it shut:

Here's how I made it:

1) Cut the 12x12 Naturals White cardstock for the "envelope" (just a little larger than my card: 6 by 12 inches)
2) Scored it using the grid technique (the folds were SO easy to score too--Noreen you're the BEST!)
3) Cut two strips of matching cardstock & added 7 eyelets to each of them
4) Put a narrow strip of double-sided tape on (cleared the tape away from the eyelet holes)
5) Cut the two colours of satin ribbon (from Michael's) & sealed the ends of them with a lighter
6) Slid the ribbon through the eyelets & added more adhesive.
7) Folded the ribbons over and stuck the eyelet piece on.
8) Finally, the score lines were the perfect place for little seed beads to sit. (They're glued on there with Crystal Effects.)

You could replace the beads with little gems or with Stickles (which mail nicely too I imagine) :0)

The image is clip art that I printed on gesso cardstock. It makes faux watercolour with markers a dream (You won't believe how easy it is.) You can also use watercolour paper, but I like that you can emboss by printing out clip art.

I used my new Close to my Heart markers (that I bought from my friend Annapurna. Lurrrve them SO much!) & Lumiere on gesso paper with clip art from this great site.

It was really really really easy to colour this. Just leave a little bit of white, maybe layer a bit of colour here or there then let an aqua painter or a wet brush do the work. The bride is painted with some Lumiere to give her some sparkle. And that's all she wrote!

Go to the Gesso Index (7 techniques)

Hope you're having a fantastic day, :0)