Beginner-Friendly Wildflower Greeting Cards : That Pop

1. Introduction: Have you ever received a handmade card and kept it long after the occasion had passed? Hi, I'm Madhu. I'm a watercolor artist, a published author, and I love teaching watercolors to complete bignur step by step. My brand fees is known for its playful, fun style. In this class, we're going to learn how to paint handmade greeting cards. It's more than just paper and paint. It's a personal gift and a small piece of art that can brighten some days day. In this class, we'll be creating four beautiful wildflower inspired greeting cards. We'll dive into the different materials, learn to paint simple wildflower step by step, and then put them together to create some interesting, unique handmade cards. Also show you how to make envelopes to match your cards. What's also really special about these cards are the fun little pop up elements that can add an extra touch of charm and surprise. Even if you're completely new to watercolors, by the end of this class, you will have a collection of beautiful handmade cards and the confidence to create many more of your own. So gather your supplies, settle into a cozy creative space, and let's paint some beautiful wildflower cards together. 2. Materials: Let's talk materials. To start off, you're going to need two different sheets of paper, a watercolor, thick 300 GSM paper. This is what we're going to make our card on, and that's our main sheet. We're also going to add in some watercolor painting florals on top of it. The next sheet is a slightly thinner sheet. It's about 100 GSM. It also can hold watercolors because we're going to do all our florals on it. So we want something slightly thick, but it's going to be perfect, especially for the folds and different pop ups that we're going to add. Next we're going to need our paints. I'm using the terrain set from art philosophy. They have a nice range of colors, lots of greens, which is going to be perfect for what we're creating today. And then we're also going to need a brush I'm using a basic round brush of size, I would say four or six. It depends on the brand I've noticed. This is a size six and a basic brush, we're also going to need some glue for us to stick down our various elements, as well as double sided foam tape. Now, the double sided foam tape is especially useful for elements that we want to place on top to create a three D element. You can see here that little patch of writing is on foam tape, so it pops a little bit higher than the rest. Finally, some tissues, pencil, a scale, and water cup. For the envelop, we're going to use some craft paper and then add in some handmade painting to it. 3. Card Template: Before we begin, let's prep our greeting cards. Now, I'm making custom size. So they're basically an A five size that's been folded into an A six. So I've taken my A four sheet. I'm dividing into half, and then I'll be folding the other half. If you have ready made watercolor cards, you can use them, and I'm going to give the measurements accordingly so you can change it around. We'll also be making custom envelopes to fit your cards in so you don't have any problems on that. Now that I've divided my sheet, I'm just marking the other half as well so I know where I want to fold my card. Now, you can use a cutter. You can use a scissors, you can draw a line. It's really up to you. I'm going to use a cutter so I can get my line straight. First, let's cut our A four in half. And for the other half, I'm going to use the back of my brush to just mark it for the fold line. I found that this is easier to fold than me trying and struggling. So just having that fold line really helps. So I've placed it in the center, and then I'm using the back of my brush and just marking that point, that line. Now, very easy, I can fold it over. We're going to have four of these cards ready for us to work on in this class. Y 4. Crimson Meadow: I'm so excited to start with our first greeting card. This is so pretty, and I love how this inside just pops. We're gonna start with some simple florals, or poppies, and create something very interesting. For our poppies, I'm going to start with a simple circle in the middle of the page, and then I'm going to take my red, add a little bit of water, so it's very soft and subtle. And then we're just going to add in our petals. Notice how the layer is very light because we're going to stack up a second layer that's going to be brighter. We want to make sure that this is very light. Add in a very big petal, and then a second one. R fill up the space. While this is drying, let's add in some more flowers. I'm going to add in one big petal. This is going to be a side view flower. We can add in some buds and then connect everything to a stem. So let's wash our brush and take in green, and we're going to start at the bottom and just add in a thin line connecting to the flour. Let's add another one that branches out and connects to the smaller flour, and then we can add in some buds. The interesting thing with poppies is the buds generally falling down, and so we're going to use that. And remember that your buds are always smaller in size. Now, I'm flipping to the back of my brush and using the back to add in some thin in lines for the buds. This adds a little texture without really needing to do too much. Time to add in some leaves. We're just going to pull through our brush, and then we're going to add some quick lines from longer lines to thinner lines forming a leaf. Notice how I do this. After completing the step, we're going to move on to drying our base colors. You can use a blow dryer or a craft trier or just let it rest for a bit. And once everything is dry, we can go ahead and add in our second layers. So my painting is dry. I'm going to go in with red. And this time, I'm not adding water. I'm going to just take the red as it is, and I'm going to add in a layer of petal between what I had painted before. That's really important. You can see the previous layer show through. Let's add three petals this time, and then you're going to use the back of your brush to add in the veins for the flowers. I let's repeat this for our smaller flour, adding in two smaller petals and then using the back of your brush to add in some lines. And here we have our very simple poppy. We still need to add the center of the flour. You can let it dress for a bit or while it's still wet, add in a drop of purple to the edge. You can see how I'm just gently tapping my brush, so a little bit of that purple spreads around. Just wait a couple of seconds, and we're going to add another layer in the center. Or you can use a black pen to get in those center details. A One of the key features of poppies is their center because it's so bold and interesting. So we want to make sure that we get those details using the black, just adding dots. Now we're going to do a secondary flower. This is our thistle. Thistle are very interesting to paint. So you start with green circles for the base of the flower. Let's add a couple of them. And thistles are generally really small compared to poor pi. We're keeping it the same size for our painting today. Now, what I'm going to do is with the back of my brush, I'm adding thin lines, small short lines along to create texture. Notice how I'm doing that. I already love how when it dries up, it's all going to settle through, and you're going to be able to see these lines a lot more clear. Time to add in a stem connecting all these little flowers. Add in some leaves, quick lines connecting to the center point. So you have a big line and then add some smaller lines, and you've got your leaves. Now, we're letting everything dry. And once it's dry, I'm going to mix a little bit of peach or cream to the red so you get a more pink colour. And then I'm adding thin lines to the top of the green circles we painted. Wait for a bit, and then we're going to add in some more thin lines. You can even go in with red and directly add in the lines. For our greeting card, we're going to repeat the same thistle just one more time, just a single strand, so it really fills up our card. It depends on what size you're doing. As I discussed before, if you want to make a bigger card, you can add more poppies, more elements or keep it simple. As discussed before, remember that your flowers that you're painting right now need to be smaller, so they need to be above 3.54 " in height. Keep that in mind so that they fit our greeting card. So added one solitary flower, and that's going to be perfect for what we're going to do next. Are you excited? If you've gotten this far. Good job. I can't wait to assemble all of this together to create our interesting greeting card. 5. Card Front 1 Crimson Meadow: Cut up the different elements. Try to get as close as possible, or if you want to keep a little bit gap, that's okay. I try to go a little closer, so it looks really great. I take this time to just enjoy the process of cutting, painting, and just enjoying getting excited about how this is going to turn out. I skipped ahead, so you can see I have my different elements. Now using a cutter, just being really careful, we're going to cut the spaces in between of some of the elements, so you can see through them. This is going to be great for our next step where we're going to add in a background. And through that, you'd be able to see the details. So as much as possible, we don't have to get everything, but the bigger portions like something like that, it would really help if you can just use a cutter to get really close. Ready with all of your elements. Let's get started with our card. This is the front of the card, and I'm just putting everything together to see how they can fit together. So you have your poppy right in the front and the thistle towards the back or just behind it a little bit. It's good to place it so you have an idea where everything goes. And what we're going to do once we have that idea is we're going to actually paint the background, so we're going to have some more leaves at the back that are just there as an add on to our card. Before that, the first thing we're gonna do is paint a little cup in which the flowers are gonna sit. So I'm taking my other sheet, and I'm just gonna draw out my cup. Add in a little handle for the cup, and then we're going to just paint it with a very simple design. If you want, you can add in more, you want to add in flows. That's fine. But I'm keeping it really simple because I want the poppies and our flowers to pop right out of the card. Once that's done, let's paint our cup orange, a color that works really well with the reds and pinks that we used before. Once you have that painted, we can drop in a little bit of yellow and a little bit of a darker orange as well. Let all of this dry up, or you can use your hand craft dryer. And once that's done, we can go in with a second layer. This is the part you can just have fun with. I'm adding in a little orange layer right on top and just painting everything out. Next, using the back of my brush, I'm going to add in a thin line. And then I can add in a small little flour in the middle. Very, very simple. We can now cut out the cup, and we have our different elements ready. Let's go back to our greeting card. And we're going to get into painting a little background before we paste everything. Just repeat your leaves in the backdrop. And using a secondary cream, we can add in some quick lines. All starting from the center. So you can see how it's kind of flailing out, which is perfect. That's exactly what we want. Time to add in a little splatter by just tapping your brush gently filled with orange to have a great background, and we're ready to move to the next step. Let everything dry up before continuing. Use your glue to stick everything down. I might have gotten my hands a little messy here instead of using a different technique. I just got glue all over my hands. Not a good idea. So but it's always fun to do that. For the cup, to give it a little bit more height, we're going to use double foam tape, so it has a little foam and glue on either side. That's going to make the whole thing lift up a little bit more. Start by placing your smaller elements and then the poppy and finally the cup. How cute is this? One of the things you can do is even write a message instead of the flour for the middle of the cup. That works out great. I'm also going to use a black pen and just add a little leaf to our cup to balance everything out. And we're done with the front cover of our first card. How cute is this? It's so perfect for any occasion, whether it's a birthday, whether it's congratulations, whether it is good job, anything. I think it's so heartwarming and so heartfelt. Now that we've completed the front of the card, let's move on to the inside. We're going to add a little surprise by adding some fun pop up elements. This is going to be so great. I'm so excited to get started. 6. Card Pop 1 Crimson Meadow : Pop up cards are so special. I have been enjoying creating pop up cards for my friends and family anytime there is an occasion, and they always love it. So let's get started with our card today. I'm taking my secondary sheet, the thinner sheet, and I'm just placing my card on top of it so I can mark out the size of the card. What we're trying to do is have elements that are the same length as the card. And it's important that you mark it so you can actually fold and prepare it. You can see how I've got that ready. And I'm just checking if it's the middle of the sheet. And then I'm going to mark the midpoint to that midpoint. So I found a really cool thing to do with my cutter, as I mentioned before, is to use the same point as a way to mark the folds. So I use the back of my brush and just go over the line, and that creates a little bend, which makes it easier for me to fold my card. We're going to do them in line all the points we marked. Time to fold our cards. So first, we're going to fold it all the way in the middle. And then the smaller parts that we just marked, we're going to fold them outward. So you have a little wave that we've created. You can use a pencil to kind of press it down or a spatula. I'm just being very simple with my tools that I have just lying around me. And you can see how we've created this. And this is going to be our pop up. Now, I made a little mistake here. I should have flipped over my paper, but it's okay. It's not going to really affect us, so you can just follow along what I'm doing. So I'm going to take the bottom of this paper. I'm not going to paint the entire thing, the bottom section. I'm going to add a nice lineup of poppies, following the exact same technique that we did before, adding our big bold petals in a very soft red translucent layer, letting it dry, and then adding in some darker petals. So we're going to just fill up that entire bottom almost the middle mid portion of the card with these little flowers. You can add in some side flowers, maybe some buds, little details to add to our pop up. I like how this is looking. Everything is dry now. We can go ahead with our second layer of petals and then use the back of the brush to add in our lines. Use your black lines and circles and dots to add to your flowers. And you can see how vibrant that looks. That's so great. I like how this has turned out with the little grass elements. And I also try to tie it in with the front of the cart, so it all comes together. Now that we have this, we're going to let it dry and we're going to go onto our second layer. I moved my paper around, and at the bottom, we're going to add in another layer of leaves, and this is just going to be different leaves that we can play around with. You can use a different shade of green if you'd like. But this one, we're going to make it really short. And you can see how I'm playing around. I'm adding a leaf that has little branch, it's splitting ways. And you can follow along for this, and then we're going to just fill up this little piece as well. While we're at it, let's add in some berries. I'm using purple. And then I'm just going to add some berries. The purple and red work really well together. And we're going to let the berries dry for a bit before we add in some more elements. Okay, now let's use our black pen, and we can just add in a little detail to our berries. You can add some circles in the middle. This is the edge of the berry. N. Add some long cross with green and just complete this layer. To finish it all up, let's use some slaters and we have two little elements that are ready. We're going to cut the two different elements and then we can move on to the next step. Looking at these elements, I'm so excited to put them together. So I have turned around the folding. What we want to do is the center pops up and the two layers stay down. You can see how that looks. Make sure that your two borders or two elements look like this. So when you fold it, it folds outwards. Keep it at the center, and we're going to just stick down the two ends of our element. I didn't want to keep too much gap between these two. So you can see that the berries are just going to pop up behind the poppies. If you want, you can add a little message on top. You can add in some more flowers. It really is up to you, so I left that space for you to get creative or to add in a message to your loved ones. Once you have that ready, glue it up, and we're almost done. Time to have a quick look if this whole thing worked out and you gently fold outward. And there you go. We have our really cool pop up card ready to gift. You can place this underneath a stack of books overnight, so it completely flattens out. And let's move on to our card too. Okay. 7. Black Eyed Susan and Fireweed: A Story in Bloom. This card is the perfect card for anyone who you know, loves tuning, loves reading books. It's so perfect for them. We're going to start off with painting some wildflowers that we're then going to assemble into the card and then continue with our inside pop up. The first thing we're going to learn to paint is black-eyed Susans. Use purple to add in some dots for the center of the flowers. This is a practice painting. We're going to practice the different elements, and then we're going to repaint them for the front of the card. After getting a little bit of that purple, we'll move on to adding some yellow petals. Use yellow to drag your petal one at a time. We want to have at least six to seven petals per flour. Now, what you can do additionally is turn to the back of your brush and use the back to add in some thin lines, marking your petals and giving them more detail. Continue this process as you continue painting. Let's paint another flow. Exactly similar technique. For this little flower, we're going to do a side view, so we're just going to do a couple of petals downwards. Et's add apt right on top. Then we're going to use green to connect the stems and connect everything together. Paint in few more buds and some leaves to complete your black-eyed Susans. The next flower we're going to paint is fireweed florals. So this one has a long line. So we're going to start by drawing out a pencil line so we know where we want to place our elements. And we're starting in the middle or a little bit lower than that. Start by adding in some basic flowers. Now, the important thing to note is that this flower that we're painting is shorter than the card because we want to fit within it. I'm gently painting four petal flowers, putting them together in a cluster. So we have one, adding another one right on top, another one close by. And then we can add in some buds just by gently tapping your brush, and then we continue upwards, adding in buds. These are the flowers that haven't bloomed yet. So little buds along the side on either side of the stem as we go upwa bringing the distance between them closer. Now using green, we're going to connect the main flower and connect all the little elements together. Add in some long leaves. Wildflowers are so fun to paint. They're just so interesting, unique shapes. And so I try to get really creative in this class where we're learning different type of flowers instead of the basics. And this way, you get to experiment a bit more. Now, using a dryer, I'm going to dry the entire thing, so I can go ahead and add in another final layer for the flowers to complete our fireweed. Using red as it is, add in some lines between the petals. We're now going to take a black pen and just add in some filaments to the flowers. So little dots and then connecting them together to the flour. And there you go. We have our fireweed that's ready. The next element that we're going to paint is maybe we can do some berries as well as a butterfly. So all of this is going to become the front of our card. Berries are fairly easy to do, add in circles and connect them with a main stem. And then we're going to add the little bottom part for the berries. Let's try a butterfly now. We're going to use our red, add a little bit of water so it's lightened down, and then we're going to add the wings for our butterfly. Just a simple circle and then connect it to a main body with a deeper red. We're going to let this dry completely and then we move on to our lower wings. While it's drying, let's try a side view butterfly. I'm doing the exact same thing, but I'm just not going to do it on both sides. The top wing, add in the body, and then wait for it to dry. Once it's dry with the same color, we're going to add in our wing, and you can see how it overlaps and looks so interesting. Let's do that on both sides. Using purple, add a little circle on the top wing for the butterfly. We're going to repeat the same thing for the side view butterfly as well before we continue with our main card. H. Now that we've practice all these elements, I'm sure you're ready to start painting our card. Take a plain card and then we're going to dive into putting all these cute little elements together. 8. Card Front 2 A Story in Bloom: I'm sure you guys are so ready to start with your car. We're gonna dive right in. I'm going to speed up the process because we have our practice, and I'm sure you can paint beautiful florals together. We start by painting black-eyed Susans. Don't forget to add the marks with the back of your brush. We're going to also add in some side black-eyed Susans to make it look more natural. Once we have that, we can add in our fireweed flour, as well. This is going to give it some height and create a really nice bouquet of flowers together. I'm sure you know how to paint fireweed flowers. We just did them. Start by adding your smaller flowers and then your buds one at a time in a line. Add a stem and then connect everything together. Continuing with our flower bouquet, we're going to use some berries in purple on either side, connecting everything together with a main stem, some leaves, and then using a black pen to add the little detail at the bottom of the berries. Once we have all this ready, let's add in some splatters and we're almost done with the front of our card. I wanted to add a little pop up three d element to it. What I decided to do is take my butterflies that I painted and cut them into separate pieces. Now I'm going to place them on my card with foam tape, so they have a little bit of height. We're almost done. I realized I didn't add the little red details for the fireweed, and then we're done with the front of the floor. The inside is going to be so stunning, and I'm so excited to dive into that next. 9. Card Pop 2 A Story in Bloom: Of all the cards in this class, this is my favorite. I love the pop up inside. It's just so special. So clear of everything from your table. We're going to start with our other sheet that is thinner, that is going to be easier for us to use. All I'm going to do to make it easier is to recreate the same card measurements on the sheet, and then I'm going to paint and make sure everything fits. Now, right at the center of the sheet, we can add in our open book. But adding in some curve lines for the top and bottom and straight line for the sides. Once we have the open book, I'm making sure that I keep enough of space at the bottom, sides and on top. That way, even when I do my pop up, they all fit into the card. Once you have that overall shape of the book, we can start by painting our flowers. We're going to do some different flowers, not like anything that we've created in the practice session, just simple but using the same techniques. First thing to begin, let's start by painting the inside of our book with a very soft pink colour, add in a lot of water to blend it together. Y Now I'm going to paint in some yellow circles for the center of our flowers, spreading them across the top of the book. Let's mix Crimson with our cream or if you have white, you can use that. And then we're going to get a very soft pink shade that we're going to use. I'm using the same technique that we did for the black-eyed Susans for each petal at a time. The only difference is instead of keeping the edge straight or curved, I'm going to have a little wave on top. You can see how I did this. It's the same process of adding each petal at a time and then using that top wave. Now, you can switch and turn around your brush to add in some mark lines to add more detail to the flour. How adorable is this? So great. Now we can continue adding lots of different flowers with the exact same technique. Maybe you can do some smaller or bigger or the same size. Just have fun with it and just fill up the top of the book. Now we add in some side flowers by just adding a little semicircle with a wave on top and then using the back of your brush to add in some details. Next, I'm going to use a black pen and then add in circle around the center of the flowers, as well as just outline the book. We then are going to add in, like, some berries to make the entire thing feel very summer, very fun, and also fit any occasion that you'd like to give this for. Now, adding purple around the edge of the book, and then we're going to use a black pen to outline the pages of the book. Time to add in some leaves, connect the stems, and bring it all together. I decided to mix in a purple with blue and purple to get a darker blue colour for the berries. This also ties in with the front of our card with the same blue colour. Then we add in some berries through this beautiful painting. You can get really creative with this if you'd like. There's so much of possibility with greeting cards that sometimes I feel like I can give you option A, B, CD, all the way to Z because there's so much you can try out with card making with just a few techniques. So the same flasks can be placed differently. Different colors can look completely different, and that is what is so fun. And also, the bonus is it's handmade and perfect for gifting. You can also create these for little tags. If you want to add in a thank you note, so many possibilities, as I mentioned. Amazing. We're done with our piece. Let it dry completely, and then we're going to cut around it. You can get as close as possible so you get a better effect. I'm going to skip ahead after cutting my piece. This is really important. We're going to now cut a small strip of paper, and you can see the measurements are above. I've also added it in the A section as part of the templates for this class. So we're starting off with 1 centimeter height and then going into 1 centimeter three, one, three, one. And then you can cut this really two pieces like this for our pop up. Once you have the two pieces, we're going to fold them in the same direction. And then we're going to create a little box with it by adding glue to the end. I'm going to see this in a second. All I'm doing is just folding it And then I'm going to add glue to the last piece and connect it to the first piece. So you get a little box. Press it down so it completely sticks. We're going to do the same thing for the second piece as well. So you have two pieces exactly the same. A Now for the next step, we're going to connect the two small ends together. You should be able to fold it and completely press it down. This is our pop up element, and we're going to place it in the center of our card. To stick it down, we're going to add glue to the longer sides. A completely press it down so it fully flattens out. Then we're going to add a smaller piece, our book to this as well. I'm making sure that rolly has pressed down and got stuck. Now we're going to add glue to these two sides. Y. Place your book element at the center, and then gently close down your card, hold it for a couple of seconds so it completely gets stuck. And then when you open, you should have a beautiful reveal. If you'd like to play some books over it, you can do that. So it just completely sticks down and alla we have our final pop up. How pretty does that look. It's such a great gift. I 10. Northern Wildflowers: Are you ready to dive into another card? And I wanted to label this one Northern Wildflowers just because it's so special and just feels like a pop of fresh air. The colors are beautiful. So let's get started and begin with our painting. As we practiced before, we're going to paint our fireweed flowers. I used the sample that I had created before, my practice exercise. You can go back to the previous tutorial to have a look on how we created this. And once you have it ready, we can cut it into a separate piece and use it for our project. Don't forget to add in your thin pink lines for the flour. I love how this looks. And remember that also the height of this flower that we painted is a little bit lesser than the card. For the next one, we're going to be painting flax seed flowers. Flax flowers are so pretty, and I thought this was the perfect fit for our project. So what I did is take a little bit of blue, mixed in with a little red to get you this nice warm purple. Start by just adding in your petals. In a triangle shape, use the back of your brush to add in some lines for details. I have two little buds at the bottom or two little side view flowers, and then a full flower on top, as you can see. Flax flowers has about five petals, and that's where we're going to be painting one at a time. Time to connect everything to our main stem using green, I'm just going to connect a thin line to the little flowers as well as the main flower. And now we can add in some buds, as well. We're going really small with the buds in a little triangle shape and some very long leaves. Go ahead and add another layer of purple for some more petals. And you can see how that looks so pretty. We're ready to just add in the smaller details, which is just the center of the flower. This is a bonus tip. If you want, you can use a black pen and then just outline some of the flowers. Finally, let's paint some simple berries, leaving a little bit of space so we can cut up all these elements. I'm using orange to add in circles, clumping some of them together, changing the size as I go higher, making them smaller. I then use a black pen and connect all of them together with a little dots for the end of the berries. Okay. For the final step, we're going to add in some long leaves between the berries to complete this element. Now, after this, we're going to paint a butterfly just to add into our card because I think it's the perfect add on. Butterflies are so easy to paint. So we start with one color, add a little bit of water, so it's very translucent and paint in your triangles with a rounded edge. Once that's done, take color directly from the pan and paint the body and two little circles for the antennas. Using a black pen, you can connect the tube. Now we're going to let it dry. Once it's dry, go ahead and add in the second win using the layer of color. Keep it as transparent so it is see through. And what we can do is add in two little circles with a contrast color or a matching color on the top wing. This is an easy way to add in a butterfly without getting into too many details. 11. Card Front 3 Northern Wildflowers: Time to put together all of the different elements to create a card. I've cut down everything so that we have three different elements, four different elements, the berries, the flowers, and the butterfly, and we're just going to bring it together. What I wanted to do is instead of just having it on the sheet, I wanted to add a little jar where all the flowers are sitting in. For that, using a pencil, let's just mark out where these flowers are sitting. Just make sure you have the width of all these elements. And then we can proceed with the next step. This is going to be such an easy way to add in little details so that our card just really pops. Let's start by gluing everything down. I'm just using a basic clue and pasting all of the different elements, and then we can paint what we need. Now, using purple, let's add our vase or bowl of water. One step at a time, add your elements together, place them in a way that you feel makes sense, that you really enjoy. You can add in more elements or if you want to do a bigger card, you can really play around with that. And I think the colors match, which is why this is so great. Yes, some of the elements are popping out of the card, and that's very intentional. I am so in love with how this looks. It's so pretty. It's got all the fun vibes. It's perfect. It's handmade, so special. We just have a couple of little details that I like adding into all of my paintings, so we're going to add a quick splatter, just to bring everything together, and you can add in some circles. If you want to add in some stars, it's really up to you. And we've completed the front of our Northern wildflower card. Are you ready to dive into the inside of the card? 12. Card Pop 3 Northern Wildflowers: Let's have some fun. Shall we? For the inside of the card, we're going to create a amazing pop up that's just going to surprise anyone that you give this card to something special and so unique. So the first thing we're going to do is take our card, and we're just going to add in some lines. This is for the background of all our elements. I wanted to keep it contemporary, fun, and friendly, and also using the same purple that we used for our flax flower. So it's all in theme of this beautiful, luscious purple. A continue this process through the entire cart. We're going to let everything dry, and then once it's dry, we'll continue with the various elements. This is almost similar to the first cart we made with the poppies, but we're layering it up and going into the second stage and making it even more making it pop up more. So are you ready to get started, excited to begin? Well, I am so excited to start. So I'm just going to skip ahead to this step, and we can just dive right in to our pop up. So what I've done is I've taken my other sheet, the thinner paper, and I've just picked a width of it, following the card. So it's the same width sorry, the same length of the card, and I'm folding it in the center. And then once I have it folded, I'm going to bring it the other two sides to the middle. You've got your first layer of pop up. This is exactly what we did for the poppies. Now that we have our pop up ready, let's begin painting our various elements. You can get really creative with this if you want to just add in a message. If you want to add in some flowers, it's really up to you. I wanted to keep my entire cart flows. So I'm just going to fix on the same details that we've already been playing with. You can even try smaller flows, bigger flowers, like it really opens up your choices. And now that you have the tools, it's really up to you. But let's follow along, and let's create something pretty together. So starting with flax flowers, I'm adding in a set of flowers using the same technique of turning around my brush and using the back of the brush for some lines and details. Continue this process. You can add little varieties of these flowers, so many options. Now that I have a big flower, I thought it would be really fun to do a smaller one, just to create some interesting contrast in the peeps, make it look pretty. With the intention of bringing it all together, adding in some side view flowers, you can even add in some buds, and we're going to do this. So we're filling up this entire sheet with all our little details. Et's use yellow for the center of the flower and paint them out. The next step is to add in our leaves with our various greens. A Don't forget to add in some buds while you're in this process and then use a black pen to just outline them. Continue adding leaves across the entire border. I decided to switch to a different color, a lighter green and using that to add more detail. I really want to fill up the bottom part of the flour of this element. Let's add in some splatters and we're done with our piece. Now, make sure to cut it up as close as you can get and then we can move on to our next element. I didn't really want to get into how I'm cutting it, so I'm just going to skip ahead so you can see how it looks in the end. Now that we have this, we're going to take another paper, and we're going to add a smaller element. This is going to come behind what we just created. So we want to make sure that it's maybe the same height, but we're making sure that whatever we paint can be seen. This is really important. Now for the next piece, instead of folding it half and half, like we did before, I'm going to actually make it a little smaller. So just on the meter smaller and then fold it. You're going to understand what that means in a bit. So here you can see how the fold is smaller than the previous one. And then, based on that, we're going to get into our painting. We're going to add in our flowers and really fill up this sheet as well for our second element. So we're having two pop ups for this card. What I decided to do is add in some pink flowers. It's just some very simple flowers following similar techniques, just making the petals more rounded, just for some variation. H. Use the back of your brush to add in some lines and details for the flour. Continue this process. Let's add in a side view, which is just four petals, maybe some buds, and then we can add in more of the purple blue flowers that we painted before to connect everything together. Y Use green to connect all of the stems, add in some these, and we're finished with this element. Notice how I did go all the way to the edges. I kept it more to the center. So this piece is going to be smaller than what we did before. Using a black pen, I'm going to add in some dots around the center of the flowers. Maybe we can add in some curly elements. Just have fun. I just thought of this randomly, and I thought it just kind of added some movement to the painting. Once we have this, we're going to cut. Now, what I'm going to do is I'm not going to cut close to the fold. I'm keeping a little bit gap as you can see, and then cutting the two sides. Once I have that, I'm going to cut across. It's much more clear on the other side when I cut it. And then you can cut around all the different elements like we've done before, getting it as close as possible. I'm going to skip ahead so you can see what I've created, what I've cut. We have our long paper, and then we have our smaller paper that stacks on the top behind. And that's exactly how our card is going to look. You can place it in a way that it sits really well. So if you want to have that white or if you don't want to, you just have layers of flowers together. Now, you can see how I've kept it in the center of the greeting card, and just the edges, the foldable areas are going to be stuck down. If you want with a black pen, you can add a line like a pot for these flowers. Times I stick everything down. So we're going to take our glue, and what we're going to do is those little flaps, we're going to first put glue on them and then flip it and add glue to the floral elements that have folded. On either side, remember to not put any glue in the middle part because that is where it's going to pop up from. Very, very important. And then once that's ready, you can spread around the glue a little bit. So it's not just dots. And then carefully, we're going to just fold those two edges and then keep it in the center of the card and stick everything down. Just make sure those flats turn inward. And then you can make sure that the flowers stick down as well. Now, let's fold the card and just make sure that it all flattens out a bit more. We're going to do the next layer as well, and then you can actually place the whole thing under a stack of books, so it really flattens down before you gift it to someone. So again, with this layer, we're going to just add in glue on either side. If you want, you can actually cut a little bit off the bottom. I felt like the whole thing was a bit too tall when I placed it. So I thought it might be nice to actually bring it down a little bit, so it doesn't take up too much off the card. So you can do a little bit of trimming at the bottom. It's going to look really nice as well. And then once that's done, we can move on to just taping or sticking down the two sides. Spread the glue evenly on both sides and then place your piece in the middle of your card. Make sure you flatten down everything. You can fold the card to test if it works. If there's any element that went off, press it down. You can even keep it under a stack of books, so it really flattens out. And Walla, we have our greeting card. Do you know who you would give this to? I was thinking about it. I have a friend whose birthday is coming up and she loves flowers. I think this would be so great. She'd love it. 13. Card Front 4 Fields of Gold: Since the response for this class has been so amazing, I wanted to add a bonus tutorial fields of gold, and we're going to create this incredible card that just pops right out. So we're starting by painting our black-eyed Susans, keeping it really simple, adding a little purple for the center, and then using yellow. We did the same flow previously for our card two, and we're following the exact same thing. So I'm just skipping ahead, so you can just see the painting, but I'm not going into too many details because you can refer to that step by step. Just adding in those yellows, adding in the different layers of flowers, and we're trying to bunch them together. The height of this entire thing is almost half of the cart size that you're creating. Once we have the flowers, we can add in a little bud and then connect everything to a main stem. Add in some more green buds and leaves. I love the idea of using the back of your brush to add in details. Once you have this flour, let's cut it and we've got one of our elements ready. We're going to take a brand new card, and we're going to start by adding in some backdrop greenery. Using a green, I'm going to start by adding in some leaves. The leaves I chose to do here are more like grass, so they kind of extend, start with the main line and then add in some more smaller branches and then we're going to add in leaves at the end of each. A Have fun with this process. You can add as many leaves as you want, as few. You can change around the kind of leaves you want to do, but I want to keep it pretty consistent with our theme. So using the same green that we used for our black-eyed Susans, I'm going ahead and adding these rounded leaves, adding in another stem, and just filling up the space. I'm keeping all of these details to one side of the card, so we have a little of empty space on the right. Let's switch the green and we're going to add some long lines, long cross. Next, we can add in some splatters with green. Add in some circles if you'd like. I love everything you try, and we're going to place our yellow black-eyed Susans on top of the section, adding a little piece of sheet at the bottom for a special message that you'd like to add. Now use glue and stick it all down for a very simple front cover for our greeting card. For the little note area, instead of using normal glue, I'm going to add double sided foam tape so that foam is going to give it a little height, and that's going to be perfect for our car just adding a little bit of detail. And we're done with the front, you can paint that section out if you'd like, or keep it as it is. I decided to paint the subtle pink. 14. Card Pop 4 Fields of Gold: 's now work on our pop up inside. Are you ready to create an incredible fun pop up for your card? We're going to start by taking our card, and we're going to take our secondary sheet and replicate it. So it's the same size and the same fold. So it's the exact same card. And now that we have this, we're going to mark out two different elements. We have one that's going to be taller, so the height is more and one that is shorter. We can also mark how big we want this piece to be. So the first one is going to be wider, so it's going to have a bigger width, and the other one is going to have a smaller width because they're going to stack on top of each other. Now that we've marked our two pieces, we can cut them out and we're ready to move on to the next step of painting them. Et's recheck this again so we have one piece, and then we have a second that is much more smaller. That's going to stack up. Now that we're happy with it, let's get into painting. For the bigger piece, we can get some bigger flowers, bigger elements. I'm going to just play around with some random flowers, as well as some black-eyed Susans to match the front of our cover, really filling up this space with these different flows, starting with yellow circles to mark out where I want the flowers to be placed. And then using red, I'm just going to drag out my brush to add in each petal at a time. You can use the back of your brush to add in some thin lines for each of the flowers. Repeat the process for this entire part. Let's add in some low petals for the side view flowers, continue adding in some main flowers. You can vary them in size or you can see how I've added a deeper red, so it just pops up a little bit more. Now using green, let's connect everything together to the middle, add in some leaves. Using black pen, adding some dots around the center of the flowers. Next, we move on to painting Black Eyed Susans. If you've got in this far, good job. I'm so proud of you for continuing on. And you can imagine the happiness in your loved ones faces when you give them this card. They're going to handmade is so special. It beats anything that you can buy. There's just something so nice to receive something handmade that a person has painted. So I always value it a lot more because you can always buy something else. You can always buy a good gift. But to make something, it's so unique. We're really covering up our bottom card, bottom element with a lot of these black-eyed Susans, adding in some buds, some leaves, and really filling up the space. Take some paint on your brush and gently tap it for some splatters of green. Once we have this, we can cut this around. We're going to cut it all the way through the edge. So we have one separate element. I'll skip ahead as I cut this. There you go. Look at how great that looks. I already love it, and then on top of it, we're going to place this smaller piece. For the smaller one, I'm going to change it up instead of doing flowers. I'm just going to do a variety of leads. And I think that's going to look really interesting, as well as add in a little bit of that green that would just add a pop of color to our card. Using different shades of green, we're going to add different type of leaves. I've got a simple leaf here. I'm going to add one that is maybe circular. You can add something that is long, variety of leaves. Turn your sheet around and continue this process, building on this detail. Now gently tap your brush and add in some splatters. Now we're going to cut the edges of this element. And then we're prepared to move on to creating our card. There you go. So our second pop up that's smaller in size, and you can see how that looks so nice. I really love the look. Great. We have everything ready. Now let's make our pop up element. I'm taking one of the sheets that I had lying with me. And the first thing we're going to do is create two little boxes. You're going to see how I do this. So the measurements are all there in the A tab. I've actually added in a link, so you can download that, and it has PDF instructions of the measurements. So we start by adding 1 centimeter, three centimeter, 1 centimeter again, three centimeter, and then 1 centimeter. Et's repeat the same thing on the other side. You have one, three, one, three, one. We're going to have two different strips and once we have that, we're going to create a little box. Fold a sheet along those marked points. Be a little careful to make sure you get it right on that marked point and continue all the way through. I This is how it should look now. Cut off the s, and we're going to repeat this for another paper. Same exact technique. By the end of it, you should have two little sheets like this. We're going to add glue to the edge of just one section. Next, connect the two ends together to form a box. Move it to the right to the left, and this is what you should have. Let's repeat this for the next piece as well. Now we're going to repeat the same thing for the second pop up. For the second pop up, we're following the same thing, but we're just going to change the measurement because I wanted to pop up a little bit higher than the previous one. So we're going to have a little change in the measurements because of that. So we're going to do 2 centimeters, three, two, three, two. So instead of the 1 centimeter, we're switching it 2 centimeters. This is going to make it taller. We're going to make two different sheets of this and repeat the same thing, fold them along, and then glue the ends. And we've got our two papers and time to create our little I'm calling them boxes, but I guess they're squares. Sorry, rectangles. But you get the point. You can see what I'm doing here. Great. And now we're ready to proceed. So what we're going to do is start with the smaller ones for the first layer that's at the bottom. Now, I'm going to connect the two small ends together. So let's add glue, and we're just going to connect the two of them together. There you go. You can again fold it because it's going to be easier for you to press it down and so it sticks really well together. Now, this end is what is going to be attached to the greeting card. Do the same thing for the next one where you're gluing up that two centimeter section with the other pieces two centimeter. By the end of it, you should have two different pieces like this. Let's start with the first one. What I'm going to do is I'm going to glue down the two longer ends to our card. So ardent glue to the longer ends. Make sure to spread the glue around. I made this a little bit too messy. And then we're going to do the other side as well. And we're gonna place it in the center of the card and fold our card down. Hold it for a couple of seconds so it gets stuck. And when you open it, you should have something like this. Once you have this, we're going to place our painting, our painted element right on top of this. It's glue the top. So, have a look. And then gently press down your entire card, making sure it's right at the center. You might have to hold it for a bit, and then we can move on to our second layer of pop up. I wanted to stop for a bit because, oh, my God, how pretty is this? Oh, so pretty. So we're doing the same thing for the next layer, gluing the longer edge, placing it in the center of our previous painted layer. Fold on the card to make it stick. Hold it for a couple of seconds, and then you can lift up the card and just have a look. Yep, we've got a second sheet that's popping right out of our card. Like before, we're going to add glue to the longer edges and then connect our next element in the middle. Spread around the glue, so it sits better. And then just place this in the middle and then close your entire card, hold it in place for a couple of seconds till it completely gets stuck. You can even place it under some books, so the whole thing flattens up, and this should be the final look. What I wanted to add in is a little bit of backdrop because I felt like the whole thing was really just white. So using a little bit of light green, just go over the edge of your card and add a very soft backdrop. Just pushing your brush around and adding a very soft colour to just fill up the spaces. You can add in some splatters, some circles. A a there you go. Another card completed. Perfect. So fun and so playful. 15. Envelope: I'm sure you loved making these lovely cards. So how about an envelop to fit them? We're going to custom make our envelop because obviously the size of our card was a little bit bigger, some of our elements popped out, so we can choose an envelop that fits it. So I'm going to take a color paper. You can use a normal sheet, but something that really folds and is easy to work with. I'm placing my card in the center so I know exactly where I want everything to be. So let's keep it a little bit down, and then we're going to just fold it right across. So we leave a little bit of space for the cart to sit within. Let's check it again. Once I put my card. Yep, it's covered. Perfect. That works really well. I've also left some space on top for any of the elements that are popping out. And I'm going to keep some space on the sides as well for some of our cards which have elements that are coming up or coming out. Now, I'm just going to fold the sides of my sheet down, keeping both ends equal. Now that we have the measurement of where the card is, just remove the card, and we're going to fold the bottom and top of the envelope. Now that we have this, we can proceed with the next step. Check it again. I've checked this multiple times just to make sure it all fits in and folding the top Make sure you press it down so it creases completely. There you go. We have the basis. Let's flip the enlop to the back and we're going to use our scale to add in diagonal lines along the edges. For the top flat, we're just marking out our point and again adding in diagonal line moving inside. The template for this is in the PDF that I've attached in the A section as well as in the discussion section. So please have a look. And if you have any questions, feel free to ask me. We're also going to add a diagonal line for the top flap. You can have a look at that. Let's flip over our envelope to the front again. You can see when I folded, you have those showing through, which is perfect. Now we're going to make that front a little bit shorter. Time to open up our paper and we're going to cut our envelop. I'm starting from the back, moving to the front, cutting all the way through as I make the front section shorter. You're going to see it in a bit. I know it's a little confusing when I say front side top is just what I'm seeing at the moment. It can get confusing. So let me finish the whole thing, and you're going to see how it looks, and that's going to give you a clear idea of what to cut. I've also mentioned in the template, the sections that'll be cut and not cut. So again, more clarity around that. I'm also adding in a little drawing here for you to have a look. A This is how your piece should look. Now flip it over and fold your different elements. The little flaps on the side will go underneath. So we're just going to add in some drops of glue and stick it down. And that's how it works. Isn't that really cool? So you can pick whatever measurement you want. Let's add drops of glue and stick it down. A Now, let's add in some little detail since everything is handmade and we're making this greeting card handmade, let's make the envelope handmade, too. Let's paint some simple leaves across the paper. I'm using very little water so my paper doesn't really get ruined and keeping it very light, I'm not going over multiple times, small leaves to add a little bit of handmade. You can add as much or as little as you want. I'm just adding a couple of leaves in the front and then some at the back. I think this ties in so well with the painting, adding in some splatters, maybe some circles to bring it all together. Keep it really simple. And look at how that works. You can have a from message or a quick note if you'd like, and our envelop is ready. Let it dry for a bit, and then you can place your card inside. 16. Thank you for Watching: I'm sure you enjoyed this class and were able to create something so special for your family members and friends. I have a range of classes on Skillshare, and if you would like to learn more for me, you can find them on my main page. I have some 30 day challenges, floral workshops. I have gouache techniques as well, as well as a range of greeting cards that you can dive into with the same theme of pop ups which I truly enjoy. If you enjoy this class, I would highly recommend my joyful watercolor cards, four cards that pop. There's a lot of information, fun techniques that you can try. I would also like to request that if you've tried the different projects, please upload them to the class project section. This will encourage more students to join the class. Also, I'd love to hear your review and feedback from this journey. And if you have any questions or doubts, leave them in the discussion stab so I can answer them immediately. Thank you so much, and I hope you enjoyed this creative journey. Congratulations for completing this class successfully.