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Two completed watercolor flower cards sitting on a light wood table with watercolors, marker, paintbrush and cup of water near by.
Print Recipe

Easy DIY Watercolor Flower Card for Mother’s Day

Create an Easy DIY Watercolor Flower Card for Mother’s Day (or any occasion). Loose watercolor and black marker lines form whimsical flowers for mom. She’ll love it! Others will too!!
Prep Time5 minutes
Cook Time25 minutes
Total Time30 minutes
Course: Paint Craft
Cuisine: Art Project
Keyword: Art and craft project, family activity, homemade mothers day card, kids craft, learn to watercolor project, mothers day card handmade, watercolor flower card
Servings: 1 card
Author: Shelly
Cost: $1

Equipment

  • Watercolor brush (beginner watercolor paints may include one in the set)

Ingredients

Instructions

  • So we’ll start by cutting some watercolor paper to the size you will want for your card. Cut your card to fit inside the envelope that you are going to use. This can be any size envelope. Or you can make an envelope for your card using this tutorial: 3 Ways to Make Envelopes.
    Fold the card in half so you can see what part of the card is the front and what part is the back. You can do your painting on just the front half or on the entire card- front and back.
  • Tape your watercolor paper down to a flat surface. Try to place the tape so that it covers about ¼-inch of the paper’s edge and is as straight as possible. This keeps the paper from curling up as it dries. 
  • First, let’s try doing the black lines to make flower outlines and add the watercolor afterwards. You can make the drawing in pencil first or just dive in and draw with the permanent marker!
    I like using a fine line or an ultra fine line permanent marker. You can experiment on an extra piece of paper and see how wide you want your lines.
    The point of this is NOT to have real looking flowers, but to make a grouping of lines that gives the impression of a flower. 
    A rose can be made by starting with small “c” shaped lines in a circle and making larger “c” shaped lines as you go around the circle until you like the size of your rose.
    A daisy type flower is made with loose pointed or rounded petals that radiate from a center area made from a few dots, a circle, or a squiggly cloud shaped circle.
    Leaves on the flowers are placed around the flowers randomly.
    Curved lines with little branches can be stems or can hold small cloud shaped flowers.
    These lines should be made without trying to look “real”, made loosely leaving spaces, and not even closing the shapes up all the time! 
  • Take a second to think about what colors you would like to use on your card. Choose maybe three colors for flowers and a green for the leaves. (The color choice is completely up to you.)
    Now, wet your paint brush and wet the area inside one or two of the flowers. It is ok if some of the area around the flower lines gets wet.
    Add paint to your brush without adding a lot more water and touch it into the wet area, allowing the paint to spread out as it wants. 
    Add more paint if you want it darker and just let it continue to fill the water covered area. Don't manipulate it or try to "paint" the flowers, let the water do the work.
    Rinse the brush well when changing colors.
  • Keep doing this with other flowers, then the leaves, and then the areas in between the flowers and leaves. 
    It’s more than OK if the water and paint aren’t exactly inside the lines of the flower. And it’s ok if a couple of the colors blend a bit. 
    Go back and add drops of color in the centers of the flowers or areas you would like to have a bit more color.
  • Let the card dry and then gently tear off the tape. Refold the card and write your message inside. Slip it into an envelopeand it's ready to go!

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