Valentines Mailbox Cubbie | By Jessica Shier

Hello Ai Fans!

This week I'm making some Valentine's themed cards but these are pretty subtle and could be sent anytime! I used the Happy Mailbox Cubbies along with some watercolors supplies. 

To get started I stamped the mailbox stamp and a few of the fun accessory items (letters, heart, bird) on to a piece of Ranger watercolor paper using some Versafine Clair Nocturne ink. Once I had a solid black image I used some clear embossing powder and melted that with a heat gun. To watercolor with I used several Tombow Dual Brush pens. The colors I used will be listed below.

The Tombow markers blend really well on the Ranger watercolor paper so I colored directly on the paper in the areas that I wanted the darkest. Then blended out with clean water. I watercolored each image and then went back through each and added more color, darkening where I thought it needed it. I just made sure to scatter the different colors through the stamp image as evenly as possible. I also painted the accessory images and let the entire panel dry fully.

Before die cutting and while I waited for stamp images to dry, I used a Nuvo Shimmer Powder to create a quick dark background. Then splattered with some Copic Opaque white, you could also use white acrylic paint. I also used the white paint on the mailboxes. Adding some lines, dots and even a little heart. 

I used a couple of cloud stitch dies with Neenah Solar White 110lb cardstock to make the clouds. I trimmed the dark watercolor panel and the clouds with the second to largest Art Impressions Rectangle Double Stitch die. Just an easy way to add a bit more detail. Plus I also used all of the coordinating dies that come in the Happy Mailboxes stamp set to cut out my images. Then I adhered everything together. 

One of my favorite things to do is figure out exactly where I want to place each item. It's like a little puzzle. I place the heart box and the bird on the lower left hand side then also stamped one of the sentiments. 

Tombow Markers used:

969

755

837

620

553

636

679

Alright you guys that is it from me. Thank you so much for joining me today!

Happy Stamping!