Tutorial - 4 in 1

Today I want to show you a handy technique for creating four hand-coloured cards from one large image. Perfect for card sets, invitations or just to build up your ready-made stash so you always have something on hand for a special occasion. 

You'll need a large image printed in the centre of a sheet of A4 paper. I used digital stamps, which can easily be enlarged, flipped and layered for techniques such as this one. I found it easiest to open the images in MSWord where they could be moved and stacked and then printed in a very light shade of grey. Although the layout looks a little odd, I had the end result in mind when I layered the flower, leaves and sentiments in the grouping you can see above.

I coloured the images and background with a combination of alcohol markers and coloured pencils. If you prefer, you could start with a pre-coloured image to save time.

The next step was to cut the A4 sheet into four pieces, taking care to centre the image so that each piece had an even share of the flower.

After trimming some of the excess card stock, I mounted each piece onto a card base and added a couple of borders to create four, fabulous, hand-coloured cards!

Although you might feel a little daunted by such a large image, it's actually a lot easier to colour a bigger picture because there are no tiny spaces in which to negotiate your brush markers and the details don't get lost when you add multiple layers of colour. If you're still feeling unsure, perhaps you could try the technique with a pre-coloured digi first. And remember, you can add as many elements to the centre of the card as you like, it doesn't have to be a single flower with a few leaves. Have fun!

Stamps: