Artline Monday - Valentine's Day gift

I love February, it means January is finally over and we are a step closer to spring!  It is also the month for love and romance because of Valentine's Day so for today's post I'm going to show you a little handmade gift idea for the 14th that you can do with your Artline pens. 

Supplies

I brought this hanging glass decoration from Home Bargains which can be used to hold an electric tealight candle or to plant a small succulent or something similar but if you can't find one of these you could use any kind of glass decoration, wine glass or candle jar etc to personalise.

Artline make lots of pens that work on surfaces like glass and ceramic, for this craft I am using poster markers, Supreme metallic markers and an Artline 900XF gold pen.

Drawing a gold heart

You can't get away from hearts in February so I decided to go with the flow and add lots of them to my decoration!  I drew a large gold heart first....

Adding a red heart with a poster marker

.... and then a smaller one inside it with my red poster marker.

Spots and dots

Next I added some spots and dots to my pattern with the white poster marker and my metallic markers.

More hearts

I wanted to continue the heart theme so I drew lots of small hearts all around the decoration in gold, white and silver and then I added some more detail onto the red heart in the centre using the white poster marker again.  

Adding the year to my star charm

I decided to commemorate the year this was made so I painted my little wooden star charm gold using the Artline 900XF pen and when it had dried I wrote 2019 on it with a black marker.  Then I threaded it onto the twine so it would sit on top of the bauble.

My finished design

If you wanted to really personalise your gift you could add names or initials, important dates and places that are special to you both to your design as well.

The view from above

The front

I think it's nice to receive a handmade gift for Valentine's Day, especially if it is something that will last a lot longer than a bunch of flowers or a box of chocolates.  I like to have something I can keep and treasure.

If you are in the mood for love you can check out some of my previous Valentine's posts here for some more ideas!

Thanks for stopping by!

Artline Monday - Cute bookmark craft

February is fast approaching and with it comes the first half term break of the year and it is also Library lovers month so I thought I would combine these two things and show you a bookmark you can make with your children over the holiday and then maybe you could visit your local library and take out some books to read together (using their fab new bookmark too, of course)!

Rainbow cloud bookmark

To make this cute page marker you will need:

• Two pieces of paper
• A piece of thin cardboard
• Scissors and glue
• A black marker like my Artine 70 pen
• pens or markers in rainbow colours

The first step of this craft is to take one sheet of your paper and cut it into a square, mine is 6 x 6 inches but you can go a little bigger or smaller.  You can use plain white, coloured or patterned for this part, it really doesn't matter.  

Once you have your square it is time to start folding it, copy the steps pictured below.

6 x 6 inch square

Bring two diagonally opposite corners together to form a triangle and run your finger along the fold.

Triangle

Keep the folded edge at the bottom and bring the right corner up to the top centre point.

Fold right corner up to the top centre point

Then repeat this step with the left corner so you are left with a diamond shape.

Fold left corner up to the top centre point

Unfold both corners back down so you end up with the triangle shape again.

Unfold corners to make a triangle again

Take one side of the paper from the top centre point and fold it downwards towards the bottom edge of the triangle.  Leave the second piece still pointing upwards.

Fold top centre point down to the bottom edge

Then take the right bottom corner and fold it upwards again, like we did to make the diamond shape before.

Bring the bottom right hand corner upwards again

Fold the excess from the bottom right hand corner (that we have just brought upwards again) down into the pocket we are creating.

Tuck the excess into the pocket

Do the same with the left hand bottom corner....

Bring the bottom left hand corner upwards again

... and tuck the excess inside the pocket again.

You should now have something that looks like this

Now you have your basic bookmark and it's time to decorate it! 

Place your bookmark onto your sheet of card

The bookmark sits on the top corner of the page you want to mark so make sure you turn yours around so the pocket is at the top (see the photo above).

Place your bookmark onto the sheet of card and draw a cloud shape around the top half of it, the cloud needs to be just slightly bigger than the pocket.  

Cloud shape

Remove the bookmark and finish drawing the cloud, then add a smiley mouth and a pair of eyes and cut out the cloud carefully with a pair of scissors.

Glue the cloud onto your bookmark

Glue the cute cloud shape onto the outside of the pocket of your bookmark.

Cloud bookmark ready for it's rainbow

The last thing you need to do is make the rainbow.  Take your second sheet of paper and cut out a square of it that is a little bit smaller than the bottom of your cloud.

Rainbow coloured pens and markers

Grab your Artline colours and fill the whole square of paper with stripes of red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple and pink.  

Drawing the rainbow

I placed a piece of scrap paper under the square I was colouring in so I wouldn't get any paint or ink on my desk and then I could go right up to and over the edge without making a mess. 

All the colours of the rainbow

Once the rainbow is finished all you need to do is glue it onto the bookmark.

Gluing along the top edge of the rainbow

Place the glue along the top edge of the rainbow and then stick it to the underside of the cloud shape on your bookmark.

Ta-da!

When the glue has dried your bookmark is ready to use!  I think it looks so sweet perched on top of the pages of our book! 

Our finished bookmark

Now you know how to make the base of this bookmark you can design your own creation to add on top of it, how about a rocket shooting out flames or a silly face?  All you need to do is fold your paper into the pocket shape and then draw whatever you like on a piece of cardboard instead of the cloud to make something new!

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!

Artline Moday - Valentine's Day rock painting

Valentine's Day is just a few weeks away and I thought it would be a great time to create some love themed rocks for me to hide around my home town.  I wanted to do something a little different this time so I ordered some white stones to use instead of the random ones my children have been collecting.  These have given me a nice, bright surface to work on.  

Artline calligraphy pen

I love my Artline calligraphy pens so I wanted to try and use them on the rocks, surprisingly they worked even better than I could have hoped for!

Using the Artline 853 OHP marker for details

I then added some extra decoration using the Artline 853 OHP markers and wrote my message on the back of the rock.

Message I'm adding to the back of my rocks

I hope the people who find my rocks will share a photo or two of them online with the tag #ARTLINEROCKS so I can see where they end up!

All you need is love!

All you need is love is one of my favourite Beatles songs and goes well with my Valentines theme.  The calligraphy pen I used to write the word love is water resistant and the 853 OHP pens are permanent markers so this rock can go out into the wild without a protective coat of varnish! 

Little love bug

I turned my next rock into this cute little love bug.  What's a love bug I hear you ask?  She's a ladybird with hearts instead of spots!  

With the finishing touches

I used the red calligraphy pen to colour her in and added details with some Artline supreme permanent markers and a white paint marker.  Isn't she sweet?

Love you to the moon and back

I love you to the moon and back is a popular quote but as this will probably be found by a stranger I left out the word I and just wrote "Love you to the moon and back".  Again I used an 853 OHP pen and a gold metallic marker to colour in the moon, I also used a blue permanent marker for the eye and added a white spot to the pupil with my paint marker.

Valentine's heart

This stone was almost heart shaped so I drew one in the middle and coloured it in with pink and black permanent markers.  I added some extra decoration with the white paint marker once the ink was dry.

You are my sunshine!

This is the last rock I decorated.  I drew part of the sun and coloured it in with my Artline stix drawing pens, then I coloured the sky in with a blue supreme permanent marker and wrote "You are my sunshine!" using the black 853 OHP marker.  

Finished set of rocks

Here are my finished rocks!  I am going to be hiding them round Birmingham over the next few weeks so they will be found in time for Valentines Day.  I really hope they brighten someone's day and maybe encourage other people to join in with painting and hiding rocks, it is such a fun hobby! 

Which is your favourite out of my designs?  I have to say I am tempted to keep the you are my sunshine one but I will set it free and see where it lands instead!