DIY Christmas Card: Using Vellum and Markers to Create Beautiful Colors
Make handmade, beautiful Christmas cards featuring watercolor/tie-dye effects using the following supplies: permanent markers, rubbing alcohol (90% is better than 70%), small jar or lid to put a few tablespoons of rubbing alcohol into, clear vellum, medicine dropper, glue sticks or clear craft glue, cardstock, and cutting blade (or scissors for younger kids).
Step One: Protect your work surface with plastic and your hands with gloves. Cut vellum into small squares. Make random markings with permanent marker on the vellum.
Step Two: Pour rubbing alcohol into small cup. Extract the rubbing alcohol using the medicine dropper. Squeeze a few drops onto the colored vellum and wait a few seconds for it to start spreading. A common mistake is adding too much alcohol at first. You can always add more later, but you can’t take it away.
If you want to “guide” the flow of the liquid, then lift up the vellum and move the liquid around. Don’t think about things too much. If your color isn’t mixing enough, add more alcohol to the part that isn’t moving. Part of the fun is letting the process of randomness take control.
Step Three: Wait for the vellum to dry completely. Cut into the various tree shapes, arrange in different patterns, and glue onto your cardstock. I tried lots of different shapes (wreaths and fluffy Christmas trees, but the design that looked consistently best was the simple, triangular, narrow tree shape). I used a sliding crafting blade to make most of my triangle straight cuts, but the tree trunks were too small and had to be cut by hand.
You can prepare the cardstock ahead of time by folding into the size of card you want, or you can do what I do, and have fun arranging the different trees onto different colored card combinations of all shapes and sizes. Where I had some extra wide borders, I printed “Peace on Earth” and glued onto the borders. Unfortunately, I didn’t get a picture of it with those words glued on (I mailed out my cards before I thought of taking the photo), but I added the words on the bottom of this photo so you can imagine what it might have looked like.
It’s hard to explain just how vibrant and pretty these look in real life. But the best part is how therapeutic the process is. My art students (from ages 5-85) always enjoy the surprising effects that are created using permanent markers and rubbing alcohol. This is a super fun activity to do with kids when you are indoors, too.
The process works on regular paper too, but the colors aren’t quite as vibrant.
