Birthday card featuring a punched border, a die cut butterfly and a stamped greeting

 A birthday card for a young lady in my extended family whose birthday is very close to Christmas.  

I started with a #6 envelope and created a card to fit inside from purple cardstock.  I found two pieces of decorative paper that coordinated - a colour printed background and a scrap of paste paper which I made a while back.  I punched the edge of the printed paper with a border punch (MS) and then glued it to my card front.  I added glue to the paste paper and slid it under the punched border.  There was not enough contrast to highlight the pattern so I trimmed a small strip of silver cardstock and slid it between the two pieces under the punched border and that was much better.  I trimmed a stamped greeting (individual font letters) and adhered it to my card front and then added a strip of black cardstock over it that was the same length as they decorative paper.  I found a silver butterfly die cut that coordinated with the little strip under the border and adhered it to my card front using 3D foam tape.  Very happy with that and it will soon be on its way to her.  Therese

Another little quilt

I worked on this quilt yesterday and managed to get it all done in a day!  I started with two pillow shams with beautifully embroidered accents.  Because they were wide enough to make a small blanket I just needed to find a way to put them together while adding some length.  I decided to put the patterns back to back and then added two strips of a small floral of quilting cotton and in between them another strip of the deep plum colour from the back of the shams.  It worked out really well!  I top stitched the seams on the plum before putting it together and stitched the floral fabric section once I had batting and a backer to create some quilting lines within the body of the quilt.  I added another line of quilting about six inches from each end as well.  I used a flannel sheet as batting and used a cool brown sheet for the backing.  I created 2.5" binding with the fabric from the back of the shams.  I finished the corners square.  It is the best I have done for keeping my layered together and getting my quilting done without too much bunching.  It is quilt light in weight but that works for the Linus Project because they have limited space in ambulances for carrying these.  It measures 34.5" x 46".  The embroidery is done is shimmery thread and looks beautiful!!  Happy with how it turned out!!!           Therese