Fabric postcard with a geometric pattern and hand stitching

 I am part of a birthday swap on my fabric postcard group - Trading Fabric Post Cards.  I have seen cards where the shapes of the images in the fabric have been hand embroidered so I decided I would try that on this one.  The fabric has geometric patterns and elements and a wonderful colour combination of red, purple, sienna and turquoise with a bit of blue and black!!  You can see below a before shot of the fabric - the strip is printed and part of the fabric. I wanted it to be highlighted so I added an extra layer of batting just behind the strip and stitched it into place before stitching the same size piece of batting to the front of my postcard.

With the batting in place I started adding hand stitching - first around all the elements in the areas above and below the strip.  I took same colour embroidery floss and did running stitch around all of the elements doing all one colour at the time starting with the black, then the purple, turquoise, blue and finally the yellow.  I wanted to highlight the red area as well so I just added short tiny stitches randomly in all of those areas.  I like the texture that the hand stitching provides!!  Next, I added hand stitching to the squares in the strip.  In this area I added hand stitching in a different colour than the printing. For example on the black center elements I used red and purple to highlight them.  I used the those same colours on the outside borders and in the black corner elements as well.  Lastly, I added yellow to the corners of all the squares.  Wanting to bling it up a bit I added sequins in the center of the squares which I just stitched in place using large french knots.  As I was stitching I was thinking of a theme regarding having special days.  I was inspired to make one of the squares a gift by stitching a gold ribbon to the top to simulate a bow and to add the quote which reads" today - the present".  The squares reminded me that often every day looks very much like the one that came before with a few changes.  We get to choose to see it as "the present" that it is and certainly when we celebrate a birthday we get to make it special by adding to it activities, people and things that have meaning for us.   The quote is hand written on iron on fabric label tape, coloured with watercolour and ironed into place below the gift.  To make the bow, I simply folded gold ribbon to make a V and stitched it into place above the square that became the gift.  I added a white backer to which I had stitched some pellon and stitched my front and back together very close to the edge all the way around.  I braided three lengths of black fiber and used black thread in a zig zag stitch to finish off my post card.  I am pretty happy with it!!  Very different that some of the others I have created.  You can check them out here. This one is off to my partner to arrive before her March birthday.      Therese

Creating shamrocks with hearts for cards!

For these St. Patrick's Day cards I used heart punchies and die cuts to create shamrocks for my cards - an idea I found on line.  I cut two different sizes in different green decorative papers, layered them and stitched them together.  On the right hand one, I stitched them to the white layer at the same time.  With no St. Patrick's Day stamp I chose to create the layers I needed in Corel Draw using fonts and printed the quarter sheets with the greeting already on them.  For the first card I embossed the white layer with the Swiss Dots embossing folder on the top and manually embossed the bottom portion to avoid embossing the printed greeting.  I layered on my stitched shamrock, added the white fiber knotting it into place and then layered this whole element to the front of a green card.

For the second one, I added ribbon between the shamrock and the laser printed greeting then stitched the white layer to a green card front.  I did add green rhinestones to their centers which nicely covers up the convergence of the stem and the leaves.
For the next two cards I created shamrocks with hearts as well. For the left hand one I used smaller hearts to make a shamrock that would fit on a smaller rectangle which had a laser printed greeting.  I added a rhinestone in the center and sponged the edges of the rectangle with green ink to finish off my focal element.  I added a strip of white vintage seam binding to an embossed green rectangle of cardstock before I glued it to a white card front.  I added my focal element over the seam binding using 3D foam tape and then tied a short piece of seam binding to the piece on the card with one knot to simulate a bow!!  
For the next card, I embossed a white layer which had a laser printed greeting on it avoiding embossing the greeting.  I added a strip of gold fiber ribbon and then glued it to a green layer and then layered the whole element to a white card front.  I created my shamrock by gluing the hearts over each other and then glued them to a green square of cardstock.  I added this focal element to my card using double sided tape. 
Glad to have a bit of variety in my cards!!  

Therese