“Find your rainbow” watercolor and glitter artwork for St. Patrick’s Day

This post brought to you by Duck Brand. All opinions are 100% mine.

It’s March, Mother Nature. Stop the madness.

I held off on the weather complaints on this blog. I really tried to keep myself from going there. Yes, there was a lot of snow this year. Yes, it was horribly cold. But I live in the Midwest so I must not complain.

UNTIL NOW.

For goodness sakes, we got more snow over the weekend. It’s 4 degrees before wind chill. In March. I NEED TO WEAR FLIP FLOPS OR I WILL CUT SOMEONE.

I’m glad that’s off my chest. Aren’t you?

Now I’m moving on.

Most years, I decorate a bit for Valentine’s Day and then head straight to Easter. No offense, Irish readers. It’s just that I’m not Irish and it’s usually a shorter turnaround to Easter. It’s also usually not snowing in March. But I’m moving on from that, remember? SO STOP BRINGING IT UP.

But Easter is also later this year and I wasn’t ready to break out my Easter egg garland and bunny artwork. So, I decided to craft a little for St. Patrick’s Day. Irish folks, this is my tribute to you, your heritage and your green beer. Hats off.

 It all started when Henry and I were painting in the kitchen. He was going to town with some finger paints while I broke open the watercolors. I don’t have any idea what I’m doing, so I started with a simple rainbow.

I know what you are thinking. “Kim, I never knew you were a true artist.” I get that a lot.

But I thought it was pretty and immediately thought of the gold at the end of the rainbows.

Then, I remembered that St. Patrick’s Day was coming up. Rainbows are Irish, right? Or maybe it’s the gold that’s Irish?

From there, things got a little crazy. I thought I could create some artwork for the mantel that had a similar feel to Henry’s rabbit artwork last year. Basically, the idea is to cut a piece of card stock on the Silhouette (or by hand if you are patient) that goes over the artwork. This creates a layered effect and gives a hint of the artwork below.

 

Because my blade on the Silhouette needs to be replaced, it took me three tries to get anything decent and I have no pictures of the process. But, I basically just cut the word RAINBOW out on white textured card stock. (The font is impact.)

Then I taped the rainbow watercolor underneath. For some extra flair, I added the words above using Duck Brand® Glitter Tape.  It’s duck tape that is actually GLITTER. I am not much of a glitter person because it seems to come off everywhere. But this has the look of full glitter without any of the mess. I had the genius idea to use the tape on my cutting mat for the Silhouette and it worked perfectly.

My machine did perfectly with the vinyl settings. This tape cut like a dream. 

A few notes if you want to try cutting Duck Brand® Glitter Tape on your Silhouette (or Cricut, I suppose, but I can’t vouch for that):

• I did several tests and found that my Silhouette machine cut the tape best on the vinyl settings with the tape on the mat, sticky side down.
• Transfer tape did not work on the letters (I think because the tape is stickier) so I had to pull off the letters individually and place them on the white page. This wasn’t a huge issue for me and the tape is reposition able so I could make sure I got it right. 
• I found that it works best if you stick to cutting designs and words that are the width of the tape. When you try to double the length, you have to deal with breaks and it just became more difficult than necessary.

 

I love how this turned out. It’s such a fun way to cut words or shapes and that dainty font is so cute. (The font is Simply Glamorous.) And as a bonus, I didn’t have to deal with glue on those tiny letters because the tape just stuck right on. I liked it so much, I also cut out a few shamrocks.

Before popping it in the frame, I added more glitter tape to the mat. (This was after the suggestion from my friend Shannon.) No real commentary needed here. Pop it on the mat, cut the corners at an angle to make it look relatively nice.

And then, I had my very own rainbow/St. Patrick’s Day/glittery art for my mantel.

 

And it was a nice reminder to find my own rainbow. Because Mother Nature is only bringing me snow and ice.

I have a few more ideas up my sleeves for the mantel, but I did add my boxwood wreath and St. Pat’s print. And it already feels a little less like winter in the house.

About Duck Brand Craft Tapes

I had the opportunity try several of the Duck Brand® Craft Tapes leading up to this post. Choose from versions in glitter, fabric, prism and washi. These really got my crafting juices going. So far, my friend Shannon and I used the samples to:

 

• Cut words and shapes on my Silhouette cutter.
• Make several custom mats for picture frames.
• Wrapped water bottles.
• Made tiny little fabric banners.

I also have a few more projects up my sleeves.

Follow @TheDuckBrand on Twitter for tons of creative inspiration!

What do you think of my rainbow art?

 

Linking to Weekend Reading at Serenity Now.