Aquarium postcards

Aquarium postcard

It took almost a week but Mom finally received her birthday card and I can finally share them on the blog. I say "them" because I can rarely make just one.

A lot of times my postcard ideas start with a fabric that I want to use rather than a design idea. That was the case this time. I have a nice stash of metallic painted fabrics that I made a couple of year ago. I wanted to use my metallic paints before they all dried up so I made a couple dozen fat quarters of fabrics all painted with various metallic paints. I used one recently for my cousin's cutlery case (which she loved). That's what prompted me to use another for Mom's birthday card design. 
​I chose this blue one that looked watery and decided to stick a fish on it in some way. I pulled out a bunch of pre-fused scraps of fabric that I might be able to use for seaweed or fish.

Before assembly I did free-form cut a bunch of seaweed and fish shapes to figure out my basic design and then I had to figure out a construction order. I started with some seaweed on the right. I got it stitched down and then fused my fish in place.

Next I added some seaweed on the right but I was not happy. It needed something else. I have no idea what these round things are but they seemed to work to finish off the design.

A little dot of paint for the eye finished them off. I made 7 all together so I have enough to send then to 2 of my brother's at the end of August and a few extras for upcoming birthdays.
​I really like the hand dyed fabric effects on the little fish bodies. All of them were cut from one piece of fabric that was leftover from the backing of the Summer Sunset quilt.