Handmade Photo Greeting Card with Floral Swag Doodle

A few posts ago, I challenged myself to make a handmade greeting card with my favorite photo of our cat, Lucy. (She was the best cat ever and has been gone for a few years now.)

I decided to make the card for my niece's birthday. (She likes kitties.) Here it is.  Pretty simple, but our Lucy kitty would enjoy knowing she is the center of attention!

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I had planned to do some paper layering or stamp a greeting around the border, but then I saw this floral wreath tutorial at the Tombow website, that has instructions for doodling a floral swag and little flowers.  Way easier than I expected!

I had some ready-made blank cards that I had bought at a craft store years ago.  They have a punched border on them that reminds me of eyelet.  You could easily just use some folded cardstock instead, and either leave the edge straight or  create the border yourself with a floral border punch.  (Heaven knows I have plenty of those!)

I used the  Tombow Fudenosuke Hard Tip brush pen, (which, by the way is one of my favorite small brush pens for lettering envelopes and smaller projects. It's also wonderful for doodling!)

I started by drawing 2 curvy lines that meet at the center, and continued following the tutorial to make the leaves and flowers. (The flowers are just swirls with petals! Easy!)

I used pink and green colored pencils to color in the doodles. (I need a pencil sharpener. How is it that I have every other art and craft tool known to mankind, but I don't have a pencil sharpener?)

Looks kind of like a weird face at this point, doesn't it?

I used a little 2x3 photo of Lucy that I cut down just a bit more.  It fits the size of the card nicely.  (Update: I now use my Canon Ivy Mini Photo Printer to print my phone pictures. It's perfect for my craft projects and journal.)

It's a simple, basic card that could easily be dressed up with a little doodle frame around the photo, or some ribbon under the floral edge at the bottom. (Pink ribbon would peek through the punches to make little pink flowers.) I'll have to decide. Maybe I'll follow my mom's advice in my head and "leave well enough alone."  (I rarely ever do that, sometimes regrettably.)

I think my niece will like it just the way it is. I hope so... 

Now I'm probably going to start doodling little flowers on everything!

Linking to:

Craftastic Monday at Sew Can Do
Inspiration Monday at I Should Be Mopping the Floor
Creative Mondays at Claire Justine
Made By You Mondays at Skip to My Lou
Lou Lou Girls
The Really Crafty Link Party at Keeping it Real
Inspire Me Monday at Mostly Blogging
Tip Me Tuesday at TipJunkie.com
Thursday Favorite Things at Katherine's Corner
Life with Lorelai
Artsy Fartsy Mama
Inspiration Spotlight at Dear Creatives
Friday Features at OMHG
Creatively Crafty at Try It Like It
SITS Saturday Sharefest
Craft Schooling Sunday at Creative Jewish Mom
Inspire Me Monday at Create with Joy
Creative Compulsions at My Bijou Life
Wow Me Wednesday at Gingersnap Crafts
Create, Bake, Grow, and Gather at Shabby Art Boutique
Tuesday Turn About at My Wee Abode
Handmade and Otherwise at Petals, Pies, and Otherwise
Grammy's Grid