I have had so much fun recently getting a watercolour effect just using regular kids colouring pens then doodling over the top when they were dry.

I'd seen on Instagram a few people using Tombow pens as watercolours and it got me to wondering if those regular, inexpensive felt pens the kids had loads of over the years for colouring would work to. What I discovered is, that if they are the ones that say they wash out of clothes, then yes, they do - huzzah! 

I do have a pack pf pastel coloured Tombow's as well and I can confirm they work really nicely too. 

To make your own watercolour and doodle cards you need:

• Washable felt pens, mine are a mix of Stabilo and Berol

• A fine line permanent pen - mine is a sharpie

• Paint brush

• Watercolour paper

• A card blank & envelope

For the mandala cards I started by drawing round a tin lid, then filling in concentric circles with colours of your choice.

Then wet it with your paint brush until it's all smudged, the colour will start to spread immediately but your circle will still be pretty "line-y"

Leave it to dry, after about an hour mine looked like this:

Nice, but still a bit lined. At this point I thought it wasn't going to work with the cheaper pens.

Next morning when it had completely dried I was super pleased to see the lines had almost disappeared.

Now you are ready to doodle with your fine pen. Mine is a sharpie but i think other fine liners would work too.

These ones I did freehand, you can see they are a little wonky but I'm not unhappy with that look. 

You can see my tutorial about drawing more symmetrical mandalas here if you want some more ideas. 

Next I simple cut them out and glued them onto card blanks.

Next I tried a more rectangular shape of felt pen 'watercolour' and drew feathers on top.

I added the greetings with stamps.

There are no step by step photos here but they are done in exactly the same as the mandala ones. Scribble with the water soluble felt pens, wet with the paint brush and then leave to dry completely.

Then doodle whatever you fancy. I did feathers filled with doodle but I'm thinking they could easily be tweaked into leaves.

The colours don't blend quite perfectly but I love that you can get this effect with something as simple as a kids felt pen or two.

I do have some bits and pieces of actual water colour and some water soluble colouring pencils that I had as a teenager (never throw anything away that might be useful!) so I'm going to do some more experimenting soon. 

There are millions of ideas online for zentagling and doodling (I have a board on pinterest if you want some more inspiration). If you are not feeling very artistic then you could use stamps, but honestly the doodling doesn't have to be complicated to look pretty. It's all about overall effect rather than expert drawing - have fun! 

I’ll be sharing this idea at these link ups