Make it Monday!

This Week’s Make it Monday is altered playing cards. I have been wanting to do mixed media art journal pages, but it seemed like a really big space to fill in and I was stuck looking at a big blank page with no ideas. I was looking on Pinterest for ideas and this came up as a result. What a great place to start!

This appealed because the surface was small and you could practice many techniques like the pin above shows. I had a deck of cards that is missing several cards and was destined for the trash. I thought upcycling it was a great idea! I am always looking for ways to make things using what I have on hand because I want to save my money for a nice mixed media journal when I have some practice under my belt.

I started by coating the face of the card with 3 layers of Mod Podge so that paint could be applied and hopefully stick to the surface. As you can see I have a huge jug of Mod Podge that I bought several years ago and it is still good to use!

After that dried, I used a white milk paint to cover the surface. I needed a couple of coats for good coverage.

The next step was to paint the surface with the acrylic paints. I had a light teal, a dark metallic teal and a gold that I wanted to use for a mottled surface. I had planned to use my fussy cut watercolor leaves and bugs for the card. I also decided to leave the back of the cards as is for now. The painting was a fun exercise using a brush and a paint sponge. I just played around with it until I liked what I had. Then I arrange the fussy cuts on the cards and glued them down with a very strong glue stick. I put a ceramic dish over the card to flatten them and the fussy cuts out while the glue dried. Key tip is patience-each layer must completely dry before moving on to the next step.

I really was pleased with the final results!! I am not sure if I am going to put these on a larger page in an art journal or put them on a ring and collect the finished cards as in some of the altered card groups that I have run across. I loved making this project and it was a fun thing to do on a rainy Sunday in October!