Mother’s Day: How to Make a Greeting Card for Mom

by Regina Garay on May 3rd, 2019 | 1 Comment »

Hello, everyone! I want to share a little story. When I was a little girl, we had a school Art Class and our project was to make a stuffed animal. I remember making a fish and my friend, Alina, made a dinosaur. We each liked each other’s better and we ended up trading. When I got home, I told my Mom about the class and in the moment, I gave her the dinosaur as a gift. Well, she was as pleased as punch, thanked me and put it in a place of Honor. A few days later, I somehow told her about the trade and … well, that was a mistake. She let me know that she wanted MY art project and to please go back and get the fish. My friend was not pleased but she did give it back to me and I then gave it to my Mom. At the time, I thought, “What’s the big deal?” But seeing her reaction, I realized then how much it meant to her to have something I made, warts and all. Of course, today I understand it all the more, which leads me to today's craft.

What’s the one thing Mom always gets no matter what? A card [And Love—but I can't DIY Love, so a card it is. 🙂 ] I thought to create special stenciled cards and envelopes using the stencils you have laying around or can purchase easily. Dad can help the kids make the cards or they can always use it to create them for Grandma or even a special aunt or teacher. Let’s get started.

How to Make a Stenciled Greeting Card for Mom

Supplies:

Plain cards and envelopes
A stencil
A stencil brush
Stencil crèmes or acrylic colors
Tape

Directions:

I went to Michaels and picked up plain ivory cards and envelopes.

I wanted the inside of the envelope to have the same pattern as the outside (it’s a nice extra touch). I only wanted to stencil the parts you see when you open the envelope, not the entire interior. So I taped it out with delicate tape to avoid the glue stripes and the outside of the envelope.

You can use 1' tape easily. Because I do decorative painting professionally, I always have 2" tape lying around. I taped over the glue along the top so as not to affect that part.

For the purposes of this project, I tried four different Royal Design Studio stencils and metallic stencil crèmes to show you a range of possibilities. This is a small project, so a stencil brush will work well for tiny tots. The most important thing to remember when stenciling is to use a dry brush—meaning a brush with very little color on it, not wet with it. The very best instructions on this are here or access these if you are using acrylic colors to stencil. I always like the color flowing in and out nicely when you are applying the color.

Dip just the tips of the stencil brush in the colors and offload in a hard, circular motion on a paper towel. I always say that it looks as if you took all the paint off —but not so, trust me.

Here we are stenciling various patterns and designs. You can see the stencil is bigger than the cards and envelopes, lol!

Centering the pattern and getting ready to stencil the envelope interior.

In a cool twist, my own Mom helped me with this project. Here she is stenciling the card.

Some tips:

1) I did not use stencil spray but I did tape down the stencil to make sure it stayed put. The dry brush will help make sure you have no leaks.

2) Kids will need the stencil to be taped down so they can concentrate on painting. In fact, feel free to curl up a piece of tape, attach it to the back of the card or envelope and stick it down on the table as well. That way, the card or envelope won't move either.

3) You want to make sure you use delicate tape only to protect the areas you don’t want to stencil on the envelope. It will pull easy and free without ripping the paper.

4) As much as possible, make sure a “pretty” part of the stencil is being used on the surfaces. The kids will have great ideas on which parts of the stencil they will like to use. Make sure the pattern is "tight" and not too open as you don't want big gaps of empty space between the colors.

You're not limited to one color—here we've applied red, gold and copper.

Using a pretty part of a border stencil to create the envelope interior.

Here are the end results below. Both the cards and the envelopes match. You can see on the top right that I simply stenciled the top flap instead of the inside of the envelope.

Patterns & Colors from Top Left: (1) Renaissance Tile Series 1 stencil and Stencil Creme Color Patina Green, (2) Small Scrollallover stencil and Stencil Creme color Aged Nickel, (3) Small Reverse Scroll stencil and Stencil Creme color Antique Silver and (4) Eastern Tile stencil with Stencil Creme colors Renaissance Red, Bright Gold and Copper Kettle.

What I love about stencils is the many applications for them, and you can use them over and over again. (You can see I've used these stencils before—they're not new.) The cremes also go a long way, as do acrylic colors. One pot, Antique Gold, I've used on three different projects and I still have quite a bit left over. When using a good stencil technique, colors should last you a while; I love that! I hope your kids enjoy making these cards! It's a pretty and fun way to help brighten a Mom's day. Have a great holiday, everyone!

What are some other ways to personalize your Mother's Day gifts?

My name is Regina Garay and I, along with my blogging partner, Peggy Pardo, write a blog called Fauxology. I’m a professional decorative painter and Peggy is a professional designer—our blog covers the love affair between Decorative Painting and Interior Design. In other words, if you need to know anything about colors and finishes to put on a wall, ceiling or furniture piece (among other surfaces) and putting them all together in inspired ways, we can help you!

Regina Garay owns a decorative painting company in Orlando, FL called Garay Artisans. They specialize in specialty finishes and antique mirror patinas. She, along with her blogging partner and designer, Peggy Pardo, write the Fauxology blog to help share ideas and tips on both finishing and design. They can be found on Facebook and Twitter and welcome your questions and comments.