Artsy Valentines

Taking some tips from this Valentine craft post, we got very artsy with our Valentines this year. One Sunday after church we pulled out paper and watercolors and tried rubber cement masking and salt sprinkled painting. I LOVED IT! Even my husband tried it since we were making Valentines to send to our missionary. He painted "Happy Valentines Day" with rubber cement, watercolored over it, peeled it off, and then cut it into a puzzle for our missionary to put together.

Rubber Cement Masking

Very easy and cool.  Drizzle rubber cement over a piece of watercolor paper or white cardstock. Let it dry. When it's dry, paint over it with watercolors.  Let it dry again. When dry, peel off the rubber cement.

Waiting for rubber cement to dry.

One that's painted, waiting for paint to dry.

All dry, with the cement peeled off.

I made a good-sized heart-shaped stencil and traced it on the back of the paper and then cut out the Valentines.

Salt Sprinkled Painting

Also very easy and cool. Paint watercolors onto watercolor paper, being sure to be generous with the water. Sprinkle salt over your wet painting and let dry. The effect is really neat. When our papers were dry we brushed the salt off into the garbage can and then used the stencil to cut out hearts.

Painted, salted, and drying.

Dried.  See how cool the effect?

Room for lots of ideas and can be used any time.

One of my sons painted an American flag over his rubber cement mask. At first I kind of thought it was a waste of the mask, but it turned out pretty cool. 

It even made a great Valentine.

Waste not.

I didn't want to let one square inch of this painted paper go to waste, so with what was left after cutting out the bigger hearts I just cut free-handed artsy hearts of all sizes. These worked great for decorating envelopes, gift bags, gifts, etc. (They're pictured here against paper before I taped them elsewhere just to help you see them better.)