How To Make A Valentine Birthday Card

If you know someone who has their birthday around Valentine's Day, it might be a nice gesture to make your friend a birthday card with this theme. This year I decided to paint a Valentine themed birthday cupcake on card board from a used cereal box, which is a great way to upcycle an item that would have just ended up in the trash. To create this painting I first looked at various cupcakes, and sketched one on the card board with a heart behind it. Next, I used a mixture of tempera and acrylic paints to create the illustration for my card. In my world there is very little need to purchase birthday card when I can create something aesthetically pleasing myself. Save a bit of money by taking the plunge to make all of your own birthday cards, and you can do this by drawing and painting imagery directly on the card.

Some people rely on scrap booking supplies to make their own cards, but I prefer to draw illustrations directly on the card, or to print out my own artwork on the cards. The dollar store is a good place to find scrap booking supplies if you want to decorate your cards on the cheap, but even in the long run this will cost you money. Perhaps I am just being a bit self-involved as an artist, but why would I want to use an illustration that everyone else is using on my original handmade card? I want each of my handmade cards to be unique, which is why I strive to draw pictures on the front of my cards as often as possible. Yes, it is more labor intensive to draw or paint your own picture on the front of a card, but the rewards are well worth the investment. If you want to be able to use the image more than once, scan it onto your computer and print it out for multiple cards. Printing out your own imagery is a bit more expensive than drawing directly on the card, but it is usually a bit less expensive than buying a card at the store.

This video illustrates what my completed birthday Valentine card looked like once I had finished the painting.

Do you know anyone who has their birthday on Valentine's Day? If so, you can always make your friend a Valentine themed birthday card, like I did when I painted a picture of a Valentine cupcake on a card.

The first step of making the card was to draw the Valentine birthday cupcake design on the blank side of the card board, which I cut out from an empty cereal box.

I used tempera paint to cover up the image on the cereal box, which I wish I could show you what it looks like before I painted over it. However, I do not feel right doing that, so I am just showing you the finished product of the painting. I covered up the name of the person I sent the birthday card to, but I will explain how I created this message. First, I painted on a couple of layers of blue tempera paint over the logo of the cereal box, and then I wrote "Happy Birthday" in cursive with black acrylic paint.

Don't you just love a striped candle on a birthday cake? I created this adorable blue and white striped candle to top my pink birthday cupcake, with the taper being painted with a mixture of acrylic and tempera paint.

I used purple acrylic paint to fill in the heart I had sketched on the card board.

I used aquamarine acrylic paint to fill in the area above the heart and light brown acrylic paint to shade in the table where the birthday cupcake is sitting.

You can buy acrylic or tempera paints for your card making projects. I mixed the paints because I was running out of colors, but you can buy enough colors in one medium if you do not like mixing.