2021 Christmas Tree cards

Well, Christmas is officially underway here. I've gotten the first set of cards done!

I don't know how the color is showing up on your screen but half of the 24 cards are on a bright pink background. It's very "not me" but I thought it really set off the dark fabric trees well. I have a few friends who will appreciate the pink cards.

Often my card designs start with a fabric that I want to use instead of starting with a design and that was the case with these cards. Years ago I bought these painted silk fabrics. I bought them in Houston so it had to be 10 years or more and I think I bought them with the idea of using them in my symmetry quilts. They never worked for that so they wound up in the cabinet of bits and pieces. I found them last week and thought they might be good for tree images on cards. I started by fusing interfacing on the back and then adding a layer of fusible web. The fabric is really thin like scarf fabric so it had to be stabilized to be cut out.

I knew I'd put them on a hand dyed fabric background but that wasn't going to be quite enough to complete the design.

Off I went to another bin to find something sparkly to add behind the tree. These fabrics helped narrow down the background choices.

Now, I don't draw. When I need a template I head on over to Google and search for silhouettes and that's where I found this tree. I downloaded it, put it in my photo editor and resized it to fit the 4 x 6 postcard size. Then I was off for an evening of cutting out trees. Ice cube tray were really helpful to keep the pieces together.

The backgrounds were fused, 12 in each color.

Then the fun part of fusing and stitching the trees. I used Superior in Light Gold to edge the trees. I finished them off on the serger. You can see from the first photo that I also added a crystal tree topper. 

​Now on to the second design which I think is going to be a stocking.