You’re My Cup of Tea Valentine’s Easel Card Tutorial

Hello fellow lovely crafters! It’s Terri from Veegstez Creates back on the blog today, using the super You’re My Cup of Tea digital stamp from the Colour in Valentines collection by Kate Hadfield Designs.

For this tutorial, I wanted to create a another sweet and punny card, that would be suitable for anyone of any age, from the Colour in Valentines Bundle. I also wanted to demonstrate a different style of card, so this one is a simple Easel Card.

I first resized the image in a text document, so that it would fit nicely onto a 4.25 by 5.5 inch card (American Size A2), which I commonly use. I printed the image out on some smooth white card stock, suitable for colouring with alcohol markers.

I then got out my handy colour swatch book, which you will know all about now if you’ve read my last few blog posts! I also made my own top folding card blank by cutting some 300gsm (thick) white card stock to 11 by 4.5 inches, and scoring the length in half at 5.5 inches.

I started out by choosing my colours for the tea cup, saucer and the tea.

I chose BG15, BG13 and BG49 which are blue greens for my cup. I started off by identifying the areas of the cup that would be the lightest and using BG15 on these, which is actually the lightest. The Copic numbering system takes a bit of getting used to and I won’t go into it here – suffice it to say I really value my swatch book! 

I next went in with the darkest pen, BG49, on the inside of the cup and around the heart as there would be cast shadow here. I pulled out the BG49 with the BG13 and also blended the BG13 with the BG15. I felt there wasn’t enough contrast and my lightest areas weren’t as light as I would have liked, so I used my blender pen to lift out some of the colour in the lightest area. This is a handy tip to lighten any areas and most brands of alcohol markers have a blender pen and you can use any.

I then commenced colouring with the three colours I had chosen for the saucer – V12, V15 and V17. I coloured this in the same way as the cup, with the lightest V12 first, then the darkest under the cup and blended the two together with the mid tone. I didn’t need the blender pen this time.

Next I coloured the Sentiment using BG15 and BG49. I highlighted the lighter areas with the lighter pen first, then added the BG49 and quickly blended the two together to avoid streaks.

I then went on to colour the heart from the tea bag and the card border in the same reddish orange colours R02 and R05. This was very simple colouring, using the lighter R02 on the curved portions of the heart and the outsides of the frame, then blending this with the R05 for a nice smooth blend. I used E11 and E15 for the tea, using the E15 around the edges and blending the darker tone out with the E11 towards the centre.

As I wanted this to be a gatefold card, I chose a pretty lilac textured card to tie in with the saucer and trimmed it to 4.25 x 5.5 inches, the same dimensions as the front of the card. I adhered the coloured card panel to the lilac card, and then adhered that to a piece of white card of the same dimensions to give the front panel more strength. I scored a horizontal line halfway across the front of the top opening card blank at 2.75 inches. I then applied wet glue to the bottom half of the card blank (being careful not to touch the fold line) and stuck the bottom half of my panel to the card blank.

The final steps were to add some Ranger Glossy Accents to the heart and the tea, to make them look shiny. This glue like substance is cloudy at first, before drying to a high gloss shine and I manoeuvred it to cover the areas I wanted to shine, using my pokey tool. You could also use a pin. You can really see the high gloss shine in the below photograph!

With an easel card you need to make a stopper for the front panel to stay in place. I found a small heart die in my stash and cut it out 3 times from coral coloured card stock, to tie in with the red of the heart and border. I adhered these die cuts together, so the had enough height to enable it to catch the front panel and prevent it from sliding. It’s up to you where you position your stopper; you just need to decide how upright you want your front panel to be. I adhered my stopper with wet glue in approximately the centre of the inside back of the card, so it stand quite upright. This is also where you can write your greeting, or if you wanted it to be private, you would write it on the reverse of the card.

Fun fold cards really are fun to make and just give a handmade card that extra bit of something I think. I hope you enjoyed this cute Valentine’s Day Card tutorial. If there are any cards you would like to see me make, or any particular techniques using Kate’s wonderful designs, please do leave a note in the comments section and I will try to accommodate!

Happy crafting and see you again soon,
Terri/Veegstez Creates xxx

• Instagram
• Facebook
• YouTube

---