Gender Reveal Scratch Off Cards

I had seen some things on Pinterest on how to make scratch cards for various things, and I decided since I don't live near any family anymore, this would be a good opportunity to use that idea to reveal the gender of our baby in a fun way.  I made some little scratch cards and came up with a fun saying.  I included my due date on there too so that it's easier for people to remember.  I kept the card itself pretty simple because I was a slacker and waited too long to make the cards and I just wanted to get them in the mail ASAP.  Anyway, here is a little tutorial on how I made my card:

I wanted to use Photoshop to make up the cutesy card/words, however, I quickly realized I don't know what I'm doing, so back to Microsoft Word for me :)  I just typed up what I wanted and played with fonts as well as the size and color so it wasn't too plain.  I fit four on a page, just printed them up on cardstock, cut them up and ta-done with that step.  Then I found some cute gender-neutral baby paper to back the printed paper and cut it just larger than the printed paper, but just small enough to fit in my invitation sized envelopes.

To assemble the cards, I just layered the two papers, used a small punch to make a hole in both papers and slipped a button shaped brad to hold them together, easy shmeasy.

The next thing I did was make the scratch off stickers.  I would recommend doing this a day in advance so that the paint has time to dry.  Here is a list of the materials you need:

                                          *Clear contact paper

                                          *Metallic acrylic craft paint

                                          *Dish soap

                                          *A paint brush

                                          *Scissors

                                          *Tape

This is really quite simple to do.  Just combine some acrylic paint with the dish soap 2 parts paint to 1 part dish soap (I just guestimated but I would err on the side of less dish soap because too much makes it too tacky and it never really dries hard).  I laid out a sheet of contact paper on my table, taped down the edges, and just brushed the paint mixture on really thick.  Be sure to do it thick because I tried to add more later and it doesn't work very well, plus you don't want people to be able to see through--kind of ruins the point!
Once the paint dried I had good intentions of cutting the contact paper into cute shapes on my Cricut, but due to a time crunch I just used some good ol' scissors and went to town cutting out some rectangles.

Once I got home from the ultrasound, I just hand wrote the gender on the cards because I already had them cut up and pre-assembled; however, if you wanted to wait to assemble them you could always print it on there then do the assembling later.  Finally, I removed the sticky backing from the contact paper, placed my cut up rectangles over the gender, and ta-done!

That's it.  It really is an easy craft and you can do your cards up as fancy or as simple as you want.