Inspired by Flow Magazine: Ideas for Cards & Art

Get inspired by Flow magazine with these creative ideas for cards and art! Love this creative prompt! I’ll be filling up my art journal with these! 

I’ve mentioned Flow magazine on this blog before—one of my sisters gifted me their Book For Paper Lovers for my birthday last June. For Christmas, I happened upon the latest issue and admit that I gave my husband the “Please?!” look and well, guess what ended up under the tree for me? Yippeee!

As I was flipping through the pages, I came across several layouts that were like the one pictured below: a painting of a flower next to a real flower (plus some fun lettering.) This got me thinking . . . wouldn’t this be a great idea for a gift or a card?

Inspired by Flow magazine: Ideas for Cards and Art

You will need:

A color printer
Digital camera/phone
Something to sketch
Watercolors, pencil, eraser
Sketchbook (I use this one because the paper can withstand light watercolors.)

Draw your subject in pencil, then paint it. If you’d like, outline or add details with a pen. You can make your drawing as abstract as you’d like. Note that the flower image in Flow wasn’t a scientific sketch!

Once you’re finished with your painting,  place it side by side with the actual subject, photograph them, upload that photo to a photo-editing software such as PicMonkey or Photoshop, choose a size and print it. You could make this into a card or a print.

Think of the possibilities!

For my first attempt, I sketched a beautiful little box I was given when I was a baby. I started by sketching it in pencil, then used a pink watercolor pencil for the highlights and a gold gel pen to finish.

I took about a million pictures and could not get the images to show how the gel pen actually glistens with a little bit of glitter. It is so pretty! I’m thinking of carefully cutting this image out and affixing it to a blank card for someone who will remain unnamed (since they read this blog.)

Next, I took a handmade felt ornament off the Christmas tree and sketched it. I made several of these little kitties one year, and they’re just too cute.

If you don’t want to go through the trouble of photographing and editing the image, you can just draw something that is special to another person and make that your card or mini artwork. Seriously, personalized gifts are so amazing, even if you think your artwork isn’t stellar.

Some ideas to get you started:

• Sketch a treat you’ve shared with a friend over the years.
• Draw the front of a building that has meaning for you and a friend – an apartment, a coffee shop, etc. (You can use Google Maps to see the street view of the building and screenshot it to your computer to print.)
• Go with the Flow magazine idea, and draw your friend’s favorite flower.

I love it when I come across simple ideas such as this one that are so  lovely. Seriously, if I can bring myself to do it, I’m going to carefully remove these  flower pictures and frame them for our office. They’re simple and so very beautiful.

Want more ideas for letter writing goodness? Then check out my letter writing “retreat” bundle. Our snail mail loving friends LOVE this one!

I absolutely love your retreat workbook! One of the best purchases I’ve made. —MelAnn

I hope you have a wonderful and {creative} day, friends!