Happy Birthday Card

It is always someone's birthday and if you are like me you love giving people homemade cards. This is very simple card that employs a technique you may have never heard of. Stop wasting time, grab those paints and get started!

Tools/Materials:

• Scissors
• Glue
• Card Base
• Popsicle Stick
• Acrylic Paints (I did some rainbow colors)
• White Wet Medium Paper (any white paper would work, but if it designed for wet mediums it is better)
• Pencil
• Black Pen/Marker
• Ruler

Before you can start smearing paint you will need to prepare the paper so that everything will be perfect. The first thing you do is cut the wet medium paper to 4 inches by 5 1/4 inches. This is slightly smaller than the face of your card base.

Then sketch out your design onto the paper. I drew a quick picture of the cake and wrote the words "Happy Birthday" where I will be putting it. Make sure to do this lightly so that it can be easily erased.

Erase the base of the cake, but make sure you have marked where you want it to start and end. Then put a small dot of each paint on one side of the cake. Try to reach your colors all the way up the side. I did not and had to add colors at the end (which didn't work very well.)

Take the Popsicle stick and, using the edge, smear the paint across the paper. If the paint isn't evenly distributed repeat this a few times until you get the look you want.

Then do the same with the "candle" on top of the cake. For the "fire" I cheated by mixing an orange, but you could use the smear technique with this too.

Let this dry before moving on.

Using the black pen or marker copy your message on the paper. Then erase any pencil marks.

With everything dry and the message on the paper apply glue to the back of the wet medium paper. Then place this, centered, onto the front of the card base. Place a few flat and heavy things on it and let the glue dry. If necessary add more glue.

With the front of the card done you can write birthday wishes in it and send it off!