 I have 3 December birthdays and I make sure that their birthday cards do not look like Christmas cards. This is what I came up with for this year and I love them!  This card started by looking through my Cabinet of Fun. I found this random piece of copper and a sheet of some fiber paper that looks like silver. I have no idea where the copper came from but I have 4 sheets of the fiber paper in 4 different metallic effects. I suppose it's possible that all of it came in some sort of kit. All I know is that it's time to finally use them.  I did draw out the design on paper first but it was pretty simple to develop. I've used similar arrangements before, especially the floating background shape that I cut from the silver paper. I picked a marbled black for the background and then free cut the silver shapes and stitched them down with a metallic thread. Next I cut the flower buds freeform from the copper. I used a pencil yo draw my stems and then stitched the copper in place. Then I added the stems by couching a metallic couching thread with copper metallic thread in a zig zag.  The threads I used are from Superior Thread and are the same ones I used on the Christmas postcards. When the Razzle Dazzle couching thread came out I think I bought every color and I use them a lot. I also have mos of the metallic thread colors too and I use them quit a bit as well. In my lifetime, I'll never use all of them!  Here's a close up of the stitching.  Next, I fused on the back, edged the cards with a copper colored rayon thread and, as a final touch, added dots of liquid beads to the ends of the stamens.
I made 8 of these cards. That will get me through birthdays for a few months. Now it's time to get back to veterans quilts.  Before I get too far into this post let me just point out that my phone hates taking photos of sparkly things. I did the best I could with these!  This card started by pulling out my basket of sparkly fabrics and I decided on the blue silk and the sparkle dot fabrics.  Then my Cricut rotary cutter arrived and I could practice cutting fabric on the Cricut.  Stars and stems worked really well!  I used a 4 x 6 postcard to lay out the design before I cut the fabric.  I fused Mistyfuse on the back of the sparkle fabric and the Cricut cut it perfectly. I cut the branch from some heat transfer vinyl.  I fused the blue silk to cards for the background and then fused the branch and stars. then I zig zagged some metallic couching thread to "hang" the stars. Then I fused on the backs.  I next sprayed all the cards with the Krylon Glitter paint, fused on some crystals and edged the cards in blue shiny thread on the serger.  I have 24 of these cards.  After all that glitter, the serger needed a deep cleaning.
 I didn't post yesterday because I didn't get to work on the postcards at all on Tuesday. I ran a lot of errands Tuesday and wasn't in the mood to sew when I got home. But yesterday I got all of the cards finished! Today I'll share the tree cards and tomorrow the star cards.  This card also started in Cricut. I cut a couple of tree shapes and a star out of glitter vinyl. I had a white fabric painted with pearlized paint in my stash for snow and a green painted with metallic paint for the trees. After studying this a bit I wasn't happy with the blue background. But the rest was good.  I cut the stars with the Cricut. The trees were traced on fused fabric with a paper backing and then cut out by hand.  I found a much better background fabric in my stash. I fused the snow on first and stitched it with a zig zag stitch. then I fused the trees and star. The trees are stitched with a straight stitch in a copper metallic thread.  A fabulous employee at Hobby Lobby introduced me to this little can of magic.  I fused the backs on and then took them outside to spray them all together. The glitter paint stinks and I didn't want to be ironing the backs on after painting and risk releasing the fumes into my sewing room. I left these in the garage for a few days for the smell to dissipate.  I finished them off with a dark blue serger edging.  There are 30 cards in this design.
 I thought I'd get all of my postcards finished yesterday but that didn't happen. I did get the 30 Christmas stockings done and I'm really happy with them.  This is the first time in several years that I've actually purchased fabric for postcards. But, in my defense, I got all of it 50% off at Hobby Lobby. I knew the look that I wanted and my hand dyed fabric wouldn't work.  I got my template from Cricut and cut out a few samples to get the size right. Once I had the size I cut 3 of them from index cards and glued them together to make a thick template for tracing. I fused paper-backed fusible to the 3 fabrics and traced 30 stockings on each.  I used the time on a car trip to cut them all out.  I used one of my oval quilting rulers to trace a line for the gold cord and then I fused the the stockings in place. The hanger is a zig zag over a glittery couching thread and I was able to do all the stitching in one pass.  There are 30 of these ready for addressing and mailing.
Today I have a few errands but I hope to get another set of cards finished. Yesterday I accomplished exactly 3 things. 1 - I bought the stamps for my Christmas postcards. 2 - I went to Kroger the day before Thanksgiving to buy crackers and basically, parked in the next county. 3 - I spent the rest of the day making 24 star cards. All of the sewing is done! I was totally heads down and focused and listening to a good book.  Chris voted for more sparkle so I sprayed glitter on one as a test. I did this before I sewed the rest of them. Today I'll spray the rest of them and they can sit in the garage and air out for a few days.
Today we will have Thanksgiving dinner with Mom. Tomorrow we will pack up the leftovers and head to the river for a couple of days to play with my favorite dog. On Monday I'll pull out the serger and out edges on all of the cards and commence with writing addresses.  A couple of weeks ago I posted about trying to cut fabric on my Cricut. I was trying to use the regular and bonded fabric blades without much luck. Beth, a reader, commented about the rotary blade and was willing to chat with me a few times. She even shared some photos of things she cut with the rotary blade. So, I ordered it immediately and it arrived yesterday.  I had an idea for my 3rd postcard design and gave it a try. It worked perfectly the first time. I've got to clean my camera lens, my photos are all a little blurry. I'll see if I can fix that before tomorrow's post. I took the pieces I cut and arranged them on a 4 x 6 card. I tend to plan my postcards on index cards to see if the idea will work. I liked the plan so I pulled out the big bag of sparkly fabrics.  This is my palette. Before going to bed last night I got all of the stars cut out. It's so fast with the Cricut!
Yesterday I also got my December birthday cards made but I can't share them until next week after my friend receives her.....but I can tell you that I think they are really cool.  My Grand Niece, Cora, will celebrate her 1st birthday Sunday so I had to get busy and make a card for her. I was on the phone trying to get an airline ticket using a credit from a canceled trip and it was taking FOREVER (45 minutes). Since I was in my sewing room I used the time to sketch out a card idea. Then I pulled my magical bin of prefused fabrics and free-form cut out the shapes. By the end of the call I had this much done.  By the afternoon I had it finished! I'm pretty happy with this little cupcake. it will go in the mail today. Then I took all of the tree cards outside to spray them with glitter. They will stay in the garage for a couple of days for the VOCs to dissipate a bit. I think they look kind of cool all together. I was really happy to avoid spraying my shoes with glitter.  It was a really beautiful day yesterday so I took time to take a long walk and enjoy the sun. While I was walking I thought about some design ideas for the December birthday cards. I try to make sure that they don't have any holiday feel to them. I have an idea that I'll be working on today. then I'll get back to the Christmas cards.
 This weekend was a busy one. We had our family Thanksgiving dinner Saturday and we did our Christmas decorating Sunday. In between I got the trees stitched down on 30 cards. They could be done at this point but I felt that they needed more sparkle. I found this great sparkle spray at Hobby Lobby and it adds just the right amount of sparkle. It does have a high level of VOCs that I'm really allergic to so I couldn't spray the fabric first. I wouldn't have been able to handle ironing the elements onto it because the iron heat would have released a lot of VOC fumes. Instead I decided to finish the front of the card and fuse on the back and then spray the whole thing....outside. They will stay out in the garage a few days for the fumes to subside before I edge them. I need to make one more set of 20 cards but I have to stop Christmas for a day or so to make some December birthday cards. That's what I'll work on today, along with laundry.  We got all of the decorations up yesterday and I added my newest glass ornament to the tree. This is the one I bought at Biltmore before Helene ran us out of Asheville early. I hope it doesn't bring me any bad luck!
I got all of my trees cut out yesterday and one prototype card put together before I had to leave for a doctor's appointment and a meet-up with friends. I changed out the background fabric and found a way to add glitter to the background so I'm happy to move forward with these. I'll share the details in a post on Monday.
Today we go to my brother's for Thanksgiving with his family and we will have another Thanksgiving dinner Thursday with Mom. Tomorrow we will start decorating but, hopefully, I'll have time to make some good progress on this set of cards.  I had lots of errands yesterday but in the evening I got all of the stocking stitched! I have a plan for the second design and I've pulled a bunch of potential ingredients. I might be able to start on them this evening.  But today and tomorrow are primarily for working on veterans quilts. It's sewing days with my quilt club. I'll be working on one of these kits.
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I'm Vicki Welsh and I've been making things as long as I can remember. I used to be a garment maker but transitioned to quilts about 20 years ago. Currently I'm into fabric dyeing, quilting, Zentangle, fabric postcards, fused glass and mosaic. I document my adventures here. Categories
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