Hey, friends!

I was feeling an artistic mood coming on, I thought I’d show you guys how to make a few simple cards. I really like making cards with just ink and watercolor because they’re quick and simple, and I really like the minimalist style. Today, I’m showing you how to do a happy birthday card, a thank-you, and a congratulations card – although they could be switched up and changed easily. Let’s get started!

First, I normally sketch out what I think I’m going to do. I normally do that on the card itself but I used my sketchbook for this. I make my cards 5.5 x 4.25 inches – which is a piece of 8.5 x 11 cut in half.

Then I do it in ink on the card. I did cursive for the words and made some wavy lines, lopsided circles and mini triangles to make the balloons.

I start in for the fake calligraphy…

And then color in the balloons with blue watercolor.

For this card, I start by outlining a simple circle. I found a pint-size ball jar worked well for the right size circle.

Pencil in leaves of varying sizes on the circle…

Ink in just the leaves, not the circle. Then color them in with different shades of green. I have an emerald and a more yellow green, so I used both and made a mix of the two as well.

Once the watercolor has dried, I grabbed a darker green and went around to connect the leaves. I also put some lines on the leaves.

I penciled in the words and then inked and fake calligraphed.

For the last card, pencil and then ink in your words.

Add some vertical dashes in a middle color.

Fill in with darker dashes and some lighter dots, and calligraph your word.

And you’re done! Heh heh, I hope that wasn’t too hard to follow. These are super easy, minimalist cards that are quick and fun to make. You can switch up the words and do variations. Hopefully this was a bit of inspiration!

So which is your favorite card? Should I do more art tutorials? Am I horrid at tutorials? (yeah, probably so. XD)