I like giving handmade greeting cards whenever I can and this dotty idea is so quick and easy.

Here in the UK we had a Bank Holiday Monday this week so I spent a whole day card making, got loads done, made loads of mess! 

One of the cards I made was a very simple dotty card inspired by this card by Katie Gehring

and this Sharpie Mug by My Blissful Space

It was so easy and I like it so much I thought you might like to give it a go to.

Start with a blank card, mine was a 5"x7". Cut another piece of card just a little bit smaller.

I had the extra layer because my pens bleed through the cardboard a little, see: 

If your pens don't then you could just do your design straight onto the blank card.

I added a little coloured edge round the extra layer. I recommend doing this first, before you go any further because this is the bit most likely to go wrong. Better to stuff it up at the beginning and have to turn the card over and start again, than mess up all over your lovely finished design!

Don't let that put you off, it's not difficult - just place the card on a bit of scrap paper and draw down the edge with a felt pen.

Maybe practice a bit first on scrap card, you want to be fairly quick and decisive with the pen. If you do it too gingerly you wont get a nice finish. If the pen slips onto the card you end up with a rubbishy line - been there, done that! Just turn it over and have another go. 

Now add your wording.

I don't have lots of fancy die cutting machines or a Cricut or Silhouette (awh, poor me!) but I do have a very cute little Quickutz squeeze with a set of alphabet dies (awh, lucky me!) so that's what I used. I save coloured envelopes, which are a fantastic source of free coloured paper, and so punched my letters from them.

I arranged them in the centre of the card and glued them down. (I'm flicking from card to card in these photos, sorry! I've just picked the clearest pictures, it's all the same method)

You need to cut a circle of scrap paper big enough to cover your wording, this one is 8.5cm in diameter.

Pop it over the words, grab a pen and start dotting.

More dots near the paper, less further away.

Change colour and dot some more. Use as many colours as you like, stop when you think it looks done. Remember, you can always add more but once they are on you can't take them away!

What can go wrong; Don't rush, when I got carried away some of my dots turned into slightly less attractive flicks.

Because it was so quick and easy, I made a load more and tried out some variations on the theme.

I used my stamps instead of the die cut letters, and added more dots on some, less on others.

I did one with my best "fancy" writing and added little gems to dot the i's. The colours on screen are a bit off on this one, it's pinks,purples and gold in real life.

Stickers would work well in the middle too. The kids could make these without too much bother I reckon.

Easy, quick, fun, do-able with stuff you probably already have & almost endless variations! Enjoy!

Julie

I'll be linking up this project at all these lovely link parties