Christmas fabric postcard

I have finally finished my December fabric post card.  I started it a month ago and thought I would have it finished in no time but things got busy.  I managed to finish off the border on my car trip this weekend.  I started with a white on white fabric (4" x 6") backed with a bit of batting and I stitched across in wavy lines to cover the whole thing.  Next, I cut a red cotton circle using my Nestibilities and stitched on a white snowflake using white embroidery thread.  I backed it with fusible webbing and ironed it into place on my postcard base.  I added very tiny buttonhole stitch using red embroidery thread all the way around to nicely finish the edge.  I stitched a hanging string in black and added a black cotton thread bow.  I cut a strip of white cotton which I stamped with the words in black ink using my magnetic alphabet stamps.  I then stitched it to my postcard at the top and bottom using my sewing machine.  Afterwards, I stitched on red snowflakes between the words.  I like that little detail.  It still needed a bit of something so I added some white stitched snowflakes randomly over the whole background.  I was tempted to add beads on the ornament and the background but somehow could not convince myself to do it.  I added a pellon layer and the backing fabric (4.5" x 6.5") and pressed the extra over to the front and intended to just finish it with blanket stitch in white.  As I was preparing this I spied a length of this beaded trim which I thought might do very nicely on the edge so I decided to incorporate it in the process of doing the blanket stitching.  It took a few inches for me to get the hang of getting the spacing right for the beading to sit properly on the edge.  I had sort of eyeballed the beading to see if it would be long enough to go all the way around and it certainly seemed that it would.  When I finally finished the stitching all the way around it was unfortunate that the beads did not quite come together - I was short one!!  I undid about two inches of the beginning to get the extra bead I needed to make the beaded border ends come together on the the corner.  I was able to do that because I had sewn the beads to close together at the beginning which caused them to buckle a bit.  I am glad I was able to undo and redo to get a beautiful finish on this postcard.  The beaded trim is not too glittery for the rest of the elements on my postcard yet adds a bit of pizzazz to it.  On hindsight, I would have been much better off to start my beaded trim in the middle of one side.  It would have made the beads line up better.  As it was I have glued the two corner beads to each other to make the border complete.  

Had a total blast getting this postcard made and enjoyed the challenges it presented!  It will be off to my partner this week!!

Therese

Dad's birthday card has a wooden focal element

I made this card for my Dad's birthday this year.  He is a retired woodworker/carpenter so I enjoy adding wood to his cards.  I am fortunate to have a DH that is also a wood worker so he regularly comes in from the shop with slim slices of wood that came off his most recent project.  For this card I used this small piece, stamped it with a covered bridge in dark brown and coloured in the details with watercolour.  I like the subtle look with the details of the wood still visible through the image.  I layered my wood slice over the piece of dark brown seam binding which I had added to my ivory card front.  I used regular glue stick and pressed the whole thing until it was dry.  I had added a bit of stippling and sponging to my card front before I added the wood focal point. Afterwards, I added a single short piece of seam binding tied to the the length on the front using a single knot and stamped my greeting (SU) in dark brown ink.
Love the simplicity of the design and that it really features the wood very nicely.

Therese

Christmas ornaments with wooden angels

I made up over a dozen of these Christmas ornaments for a bazaar in my community!  I had a few backgrounds left over from this project last Christmas so decided to finish them off in the same manner to create ornaments. I added little handmade paper Christmas trees to the back which I embellished with iridescent glitter glue and a small gold sequin star along with finishing off the edge by adding glitter glue to each scallop.  For this project I used the little wooden angels with the horns and gifts.

Pretty happy with how these turned out!!

Therese

Peace Christmas cards

I made up a set of these cards to donate as a prize for a silent auction at a bazaar in my community.   The central image was digitally designed by my sister, Sylvia, and colour printed onto off white cardstock.  I trimmed the images, glued them to maroon card fronts and added appropriate inserts.

Therese