Artline Monday - Mother's Day cards

It is Mother's Day this Sunday but don't worry if you're not prepared for it yet!  Last week we made a Mother's Day gift and today I'm going to show you a couple of simple but sweet card ideas I found on Pinterest.

Card making supplies

For the first card I folded a piece of A4 card in half and attached some green twine around the edges of the front of it, this gives the card a little bit of texture and makes it look more interesting.  If you don't have any twine then you could use some ribbon or washi tape instead or just skip this step altogether.

Making a basic card shape

I used a punch and some patterned scrap paper to make 15 heart shapes, then I wrote the letters for HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY onto the hearts using my black Supreme brush marker.

Writing my message

Once I had my message I played around with how I wanted to space the hearts out on the card, when I was happy with how they looked I glued them into place.

Drawing the strings

The last step for this card was to turn the hearts into a bunch of balloons by drawing strings to hold them together using an Artline 200 fineliner. 

The finished card

For the second card I used another piece of A4 card folded in half.

Card and Artline pens

Starting in the bottom left hand corner and working my way up towards the top right hand corner I wrote "happy Mother's Day" in cursive with my Artline pens

Happy Mother's Day

Then I added a large 3D butterfly sticker to the end of my message, as if it was the path the butterfly had just flown.  The card looked a little plain so I decided to use another couple of small butterfly stickers on it for some extra decoration.

3D butterfly stickers

I'm happy with how both cards turned out, I think they look cute and I would be happy to receive either of them this weekend!

Two cute and easy to make cards

Of course there is still time for you to pop out and buy your mum a card from the shops but I always think that a handmade card is nicer as it shows you've spent time making something to make them happy.  What do you think?

Thanks for stopping by!

Artline Monday - Mothers Day gift

Here is a quick reminder that it is Mothers Day on the last Sunday of the month and if you are short on ideas for what to get your lovely mum then how about making her a gift?

My youngest daughter and I have been making a present for my mum over the weekend, it is the perfect craft for little hands and there wasn't too much mess afterwards which is always a bonus in my book!

Supplies

For this craft you will need:

• A glass candle jar 
• A clean sponge
• Some Artline poster markers
• A small candle or tealight to go inside the jar

I brought this candle jar and holder as a set from Home Bargains, I thought it was sweet but needed some colour to make it a little more fun.  You can either buy something similar or just use a plain glass jar.

Once you have got your candle jar the first thing you need to do is select which colours you would like to use to decorate it, we chose red, pink, yellow, blue and white.

Adding our colours to the sponge

Use your poster markers to add sections of colour to the sponge, we did stripes but you can fill it in however you like.

Use the sponge to add colour to the jar

Then press the sponge onto the glass adding the colour onto the jar.

Our colourful jar

Cover the whole jar with the paint on the sponge.  Leave it to dry for about 20 minutes and then if you are happy with it put it to one side, if you want to add more colour/s then just put extra paint on the sponge and layer the colours on the jar.

My mum loves pink too

We decided to add some pink to the metal holder too, the poster markers work on lots of different types of surfaces so they are great for all kinds of craft and art projects.

Colour coordinated jar and holder

The candle jar looks more interesting in the daylight now it is not just plain glass but it looks really great in the evening when the candle is lit and it shows off the colours and patterns we created with the sponge.  I think my mum is going to really like it!

With the candle lit

Last year we made personalised mugs for Mothers Day, you can check that post out here and the whole of March is National Craft Month so if you're looking for things to do you can find lots of arts and crafts posts here.

Thanks for stopping by!

Artline Monday - Mother's Day gift

Are you all set for Mother's Day this Sunday or are you still looking for a gift?  I wanted to give my mum something a little different this year so I thought I would personalise one of her presents with some of my Artline pens.

Supplies

I brought her a mug with mum printed on it in gold and a plain white mug for my girls to decorate for me too, then I went through my pen collection to find the best ones to work on ceramic.

When I researched this craft online I read that water based permanent markers don't tend to stand up to being washed repeatedly unless you bake the ceramics in the oven after you have drawn on them, I wasn't too keen on this idea so I decided to test a few different pens myself to see what works best.

My pen test

I left the inks until they were 100% dry and then gave them a scrub in the sink, dried them off and then washed them again a few more times until I was happy that I had found the right pens to use.  The Artline 444XF paint marker and Artline 900XF metallic pens all looked perfect after my repeated testing so I decided to use those to personalise my mug.

Heart shaped post-it-note

The first thing I did was choose the shape I wanted to use on the mug, I picked a heart post-it-note and then stuck that over the word Mum.  I put a bit of folded over washi tape underneath the bottom of the heart to hold the note securely in place and then it was time to start decorating! 

Adding lots and lots of spots

I used my gold pen to dot over the mug and partly over the heart post-it, then I used the silver one and left the spots to dry for 10 minutes .  The last step was to add more dots with my white paint marker and then it was time to let the paint dry!

Waiting for the pens to dry

Once everything was completely dry I slowly peeled the post-it off the mug and this is how it turned out.  I really like it!

After removing the post-it-note

My finished mug

I showed my girls this technique but they decided to do things their own way! 

Drawing around the star

My eldest daughter decided to draw around the star shaped post-it-note and then did a spot of freehand decoration before passing the mug onto her little sister.

Adding some decoration

After a few "creative differences" this is their lovely design!

Made with love

Our Mother's Day mugs

It was nice to do something fun and creative together and the mugs are certainly unique! I will treasure mine and I'm sure my mum will be happy with hers.

I haven't tested the cups in a microwave or dishwasher so if you make your own I think you should consider them to be hand wash only and treat them like fine china instead of a regular mug, just to be on the safe side.

 I would love to know if you do give this a try!

Mother's Day gift - From you to me journal review

I mentioned the other week that I had been to the Spring Fair trade show and met some lovely new stationery suppliers, well one of them was From you to me and they make lots of gorgeous journals including their Journals of a Lifetime range.  I was asked if I would like to review one of their products for Mother's Day and of course I jumped at the chance!  

I chose their Dear Mum journal which is an ideal gift for all the wonderful mothers out there.  The idea behind this book is you give it to your Mum and then she fills the pages with all her memories and stories before passing it back to you to keep and treasure.

Dear Mum - From you to me journal

The journal is available in two different designs, this one is the sketch cover option and the other has a blossom tree on it so you can choose the one that you or your Mum would prefer.  I liked the sketch cover as I thought it was more fun and colourful but the blossom tree is pretty too.

An ideal gift for Mother's Day

The first page in the book explains the idea behind the journal, it is for your Mother's unique and amazing story!  

Capture some of life's key memories, experiences & feelings

Then there is a letter to your Mum, there is a space for you to write her name at the top and a place at the bottom of the page for you to sign it too.  The letter tells her about how to fill in the book and that you would like it back when she has finished so you can read and share her story.  

A letter to your Mum

Now if you are thinking that it would be quite hard for your Mum to fill a book full with the story of her life don't worry, the journal has over fifty questions and prompts to help her along the way.  Each one has two blank pages for the answer so your Mum would have plenty of space to write and even add a photo or drawing too.  I love that if your Mum is artistic she would have so much room to create something on each double spread or if they are wordy like me they would be able to answer in great detail without worrying about running out of space.

Two pages per question and ribbon bookmark

Each page has a little doodle in the bottom left corner

Here is a selection of questions and prompts from the journal:

• What piece of advice would you like to offer me?
• What was the first word or words you remember me saying?
• Tell me about the time and place you were born...
• Did you have an idol when you were young?  Tell me who and why...
• Describe some of the memories you have of me when I was a child...

What interesting information do you know about other
people in our family?

In the introduction to the book it says that there might be a couple of questions that your Mum won't want to or can't answer and it is ok to leave these blank, the idea is they fill out what they can when they can so eventually you will both have a book full of her memories.  

There are a few more blank pages at the end of the journal for your Mum to add anything extra that hasn't been covered by the questions and prompts and finally there a couple of pages for your Mum to fill out her personal information (name, maiden name, date of birth, eye colour etc) and one for you to write a thank you message to her for taking the time to complete the book.

I really like this journal, I think it would be a fun project to work on and a real treasure once it is complete!  I would also like to mention that the paper quality of the pages is fantastic, it is nice and smooth and thick.  It would be a pleasure to write on.

The Dear Mum journal costs £13 and it is also available in Dear Mom and Dear Mummy versions.  In fact there is a whole range of different titles for all of your relatives and friends, you can check them out here. 

Thanks for stopping by and happy Mother's Day to all of the Mums out there!  

* Disclaimer - this product was given to me free of charge for the purpose of this review.  I was not paid to write this post and as always all opinions are my own.