I am excited to share my collaboration with Wrigley’s Extra New 35 Piece Gum! This shop has been compensated by Collective Bias, Inc. and its advertiser. All opinions are mine alone. #GIVEEXTRAGETEXTRA #Kroger #CollectiveBias

I was told a long time ago that a few true and genuine friends are better than a room full of acquaintances.

What type of friendship do you value the most? The new friendships that take nurturing and genuine care or the long time friends who just “get” you and love you unconditionally? I value both and my cup has overflowed in this season of my life with special people. I have been wanting to make cards for my best friend I call my sister, my little sister, my parents, and my new hopeful blooming friendships. This yearning to gift a message of special thought inspired me to share this Up-cycled Watercolor Gift Card tutorial with a special gift idea you may not be aware of yet!

Art is one of my favorite ways to show others I care. Not only is art fun and relaxing its frugal too! With a few materials you will be on your way to creating a thoughtful gift card that will send a message of gratitude and care to your friends. It will mean more than any simple text with a bunch of emoji s could ever do! Sometimes bringing ourselves back to a simpler time helps to inspire a creativity that is timeless!

Materials

• old vintage book or any book will do
• watercolors and paintbrushes
• black art pens
• painters art brisket
• glue
• watercolor envelopes and cards

Directions

1. Design the fronts of your cards in any fashion you prefer. I often love a simplified abstract base in watercolor with zentangle type doodle sketching.
2. Paint shapes whether abstract or specific in watercolor. (If you would like details that are the color of your card you can apply dots, lettering or design with the art brisket. It works much like rubber cement. It seals the paper so that when you watercolor over it it can not touch the paper below. Once dry you gently rub of the glue base to reveal white space beneath it.)
3. Allow to dry.
4. Use black art ink pens to draw the designs and messages you like.
5. For the envelop liners, rip out a page in you book and paint the sheet if you choose. Allow to dry.
6. Fit the dry book sheet to the inside of the envelope cutting it to fit a half inch smaller the the envelope.
7. Glue the top of the paper liner into the envelope by placing glue on the bottom side of the paper insert.

I designed not only the fronts of my cards but also the backs and fronts of my envelope. By simply resting a wet and paint soaked paintbrush on my non painting hand and tapping I created the splatter style you see in much of my pictures. I love the unexpected element splattering offers.

The picture below is and example of a card that has an array of watercolor blended together with a very wet brush which allows the colors to naturally shift and blend together. The spotting in the corners is the brisket that was applied prior to painting that was not yet removed.

As you can seen from the many pictures I have shared the ways to design your Up-Cycled Water Gift Cards are endless! For a full visual tutorial don’t forget to review the video tutorial below and follow me at Simple Acres on YouTube.

Here is my special gift idea I had mentioned earlier! Did you know that Wrigley’s Extra Gum has come out with a NEW 35-stick pack that comes in a durable plastic case?! I found mine at Fred Meyer’s near the checkout stand. These packs are so cool! Not only are they awesome for throwing in your purse because they won’t get ripped and tattered but there is so much more gum in this NEW pack (hello its a 2-in-1 folks) perfect for getting extra for you and giving extra to a friend!

My sweet toddler loves gum and when he saw the new Extra 35-stick pack on our dinning room table he was elated and all about helping mom “make her blog work”. (payment was gum.) The gum comes in a durable, recycled packaging that makes it perfect for giving as a gift!

I am excited to mail off my gift cards with a yummy pack of gum and a coffee card to show I care, not only about the coffee breath dilemma, but our friendship! GIVE EXTRA, GET EXTRA….gum and friendship that is! Dovidenia. XO

P.S. Another great idea for giving cards is ones your kids can color and give to others like these FREE printable cards.