This is my second January postcard for the birthday club on my Fabric Postcard group. We need to have our postcards out to our partners for them to arrive for their birthdays so I needed to get them made as early in December as possible to avoid the Christmas rush both here at home and in the postal system. I started with small precut scraps and stitched them together to get two rows. Last time, I did not measure right away and found later that I was short just a bit so I measured and again needed just a bit so I added a strip of brown between the the rows. I like this option much better. I decided to use this butterfly applique so I cut out a scallop circle using my Nestibilities out of mottled yellow fabric to which I had already added fusible webbing. It did not cut as neatly as I had hoped but that was probably because I had not lined up my cutting plate quite right. I applied my adhesive backed applique to the circle using my iron over some release paper because I had already applied the fusible webbing to the circle. Before applying it to the front of the postcard I decided to see what I might want to add as embellishment. I added a layer of interfacing and then some batting to the back before I stitched down both sides of the middle strip and adding some free motion stitching to the pieces on both sides. I thought the strip needed a bit more embellishment so I added a piece of orange rick rack and hand stitched it in place with green thread. It still needed a bit of something but I thought maybe I would work on that after I had added my focal element. I positioned my scallop circle and applied heat with my iron until it fused to the postcard front. Next, I added red seed beads to each scallop using yellow thread. It still needed a bit of something so I added faux stitching with a fine tip permanent marker using a Nestie circle as a guide. That was much better. Next, I revisited my rick rack and decided to add red seed beads to each dip and then three french knots above each one. I am really happy with how that worked out. I have seen all sorts of wonderful stitching combined with rick rack to create wonderful embellishments on projects. I should have stamped on my light square before applying my focal element but I forgot. So I decided to stamp "celebrate" several times and then added the "life" lower. I used green permanent ink and I am happy with how it turned out. I added a white backing fabric which I fused to the batting. Unfortunately, the dark bobbin thread shows through the white but it was fused in place and I was not able to undo it. I will have to remember to change my bobbin thread to coordinate with the batting next time. It is a learning curve!! I trimmed all the layers to 4" x 6" and then added an off white bias tape to the edge. I am looking forward to learning more about these little art projects and trying some new techniques as I work on birthday postcards this year.
