Homemade Scratch Cards

 

A bit of a change from my usual beauty posts, but I thought I'd show you this project I did recently. It was a significant birthday for my better half and I had booked a surprise trip to Barcelona. My dilemma was that I still wanted to present this as a gift rather than just say it, standing there with one arm as long as the other. He's a scratch card addict anyway (wild), so I thought that would be a nice personal way to do the big reveal. Also it would be nice for him to win something for once!

• I did these up on a very basic version of Photoshop but you could use several other programs or even hand draw them. My advice is to type the message in a lighter coloured text - hopefully you won't need as many layers as I did trying to cover it up! Make sure to have the designs printed or drawn on card. I only needed one but I did a few to allow for mistakes.

• Apply clear tape over the message, on the area you want to scratch off. Mine was a square so it was simple but if you wanted to do a shape you could cut it out of sticky back plastic.

• Next gently mix around 2 parts acrylic paint to 1 part washing up liquid. I used silver to make it look authentic but you can use any colour of course! Paint it over the clear tape and allow to dry thoroughly before proceeding with the next layer. Keep topping up the layers until you can no longer see the text.

• Sometimes the brush would start to wipe off the previous layer - I'm not sure if this was because I had the consistency wrong at times or else I hadn't let it dry long enough. It's probably a good idea to let each thin layer dry overnight to be safe. Section off the squares with masking tape if you want to keep the lines neat.

Cut the cards out, grab a coin to test one and prepare to be super satisfied!

 

 

I wrapped mine in tissue paper and placed in a box with a lucky coin :)