Thank You Postcard

I sent this postcard to my friend Anne Gaal.  She had an extra memory card that she couldn't use and she very kindly sent it to me.  I also received one of her cards from a weekly giveaway she was doing.  And besides that, she's a very nice and generous person, so I wanted her to know that I appreciated her and her friendship.

I know I can post it now because she let me know today that she got it yesterday (sometimes the mail is very slow, but I'm glad it got to her and didn't get "lost in the mail").  I enjoyed making it for her, and I'm glad she liked it!

Embellishing

I played some more with my embellisher the past couple of days - trying to catch up on my class work from Embellish Stitch and Enrich by Dale Rollerson. For this first piece, I started with black felt, fused some Wonder Under onto it, then fused foil to the Wonder Under. After that, I added bits and pieces of yarn, soy silk, mulberry bark, and wool roving. I didn't have any chiffon scarves, so I put some tulle on top to help keep it all in place and then punched away. When I was done, I pulled the tulle off and this is what I got:



For this next one, I painted some Wonder Under and fused it to white felt. Then I added some soy silk, silk throwsters waste, and cheesecloth over top. I had read about painting Wonder Under, but I'd never done it before. It makes a really pretty background surface.



For this postcard, I again started with painted Wonder Under on felt, added wool roving, soy silk, and yarns, and punched. I cut it into strips and wove the strips, then punched some more. I had a big enough piece for 2 postcards, but I punched about 1/3 of it from the back before I looked at the front and I didn't like how it looked. Since I was doing all of this on white felt, the white was coming through to the front and making it look washed out. So I ended up only making one postcard from it - I will save the other piece and may make something else from it, but now there isn't a big enough piece for another postcard because of the way I cut it. Maybe a bookmark or something . . . we'll see. I added 3 silk flowers and balled up some yellow yarn for the flower centers. Then I fused this to some Pelmet Vilene (thinner than Timtex, but with 2 layers of felt, all I needed was a bit of stiffening, no added thickness), fused some muslin to the back, and satin stitched the edges. I'm happy with how it turned out - it's for a postcard swap on the Machine Needle Felting group on stitchin fingers.

Silk Fusion Postcards

These are my postcards for the Silk Fusion swap in the Surface Design Yahoo Group. To create the background, I used soy silk and textile medium and followed these directions at Joggles. After I finished the background, I fused it to a batik with similar coloration and then fused that to a stiff interfacing (like Timtex). I put Razzle Dazzle thread in my bobbin and did bobbin work all over the piece, then cut it up into postcard sized pieces. I added some Bonash and foil, then stitched on the flower just in the center so the petals are loose (I made the flower from two pieces of batik that I fused together, stitched in the flower shape, and cut out just outside the stitching). I added a Swarovsky crystal to the center of each flower, fused a piece of muslin to the back, then satin stitched the edges with variegated thread.

Fiber Postcards

I made 3 fiber postcards and 2 ATCs yesterday and today. I love this technique, which I learned from Sue Bleiweiss in her Mixed Media class. Basically, I started with a base of wool felt, then used Misty Fuse fusible web and fused on a variety of things - dyed cheesecloth, mulberry bark, fibers, ribbon, organza, painted paper towels, foil, tulle. I used several layers of Misty Fuse, which is so light that it you hardly know it's there. One of the postcards will be for an individual trade I'm doing with Ruth, whose blog is here. I'm going to let her choose her favorite.






Then these postcards are some that I made during the first lesson; they are made with tissue paper fused (with Misty Fuse) to muslin, then colored with several things - including color wash sprays, acrylic paint, and silver krylon pen. All but one will be traded with other members of the class, but I will have one left from that batch. This means that I will have 3 postcards and 2 atcs available for trade with anyone else - so if you'd like to trade with me, just leave me a comment please.



ETA: Ruth selected the third postcard, so the first two are available, along with one of the last two and both atcs.

Postcard from Tissue Paper Fabric

I used some of the tissue paper fabric from Sue Bleiweiss's class (Mixed Media Surfaces for the Fiber Artist), added the tissue paper stamped sentiment and paper flowers, then covered with black tulle.

Cyber Fyber Again

I'm doing another trade with Susan Lenz of Cyber Fyber; this time for a postcard. This is the postcard I'm sending. I did something totally new (to me) with this; I started with a white tone-on-tone fabric and used watercolor crayons to paint the rainbow, sky, and grass. Then I free motion stitched over the rainbow and the grass and added the flowers. I'd never used water color crayons on fabric before; I'm sure I'll be doing it again. You can see the postcard I'm trading for here.

Postcards

I mailed off my K is for Kite postcards today. And I just realized that I never posted a picture of my J is for Jar postcards from last month (or the I is for Impatiens from the month before, but I can't find a picture of those). So here is the K is for Kite:





I used two fabrics for the background - grass and sky. I stamped the hedgehog, and put the kite string to the back where his "hand" is so it looks like he's holding the string. I was pretty happy with how it turned out.

And here is J is for Jar:



I have a machine embroidery design for the jar. I used button fabric for it and also clear vinyl, and put some real buttons between the vinyl and the button fabric - I have to admit I thought it was a pretty good idea. LOL!!

This is probably all the postcards I'm going to do for awhile; I've gotten just a little bit tired of doing them (and of not getting all the cards from my swap partners - doesn't happen a lot, but enough to get old).

I also finished up a sunflower table runner yesterday that I've been working on for quite awhile; it is another of the Mount Redoubt patterns that has 3 dimensional flowers on it. I am really happy with how it turned out - I will post a picture of it later.

My quilt guild is having a quilt show today and tomorrow, and I actually talked my DH into going with me this morning. It was a pretty nice show, and we had a few vendors there too. I bought several things from Homestead Quilting, which is an internet store that also goes to quilt shows and guilds. Most of what they sell is embellishment-type of stuff - I bought some hot fix crystals, a Ricky Tims DVD, some new glitter paint that I'd not seen or heard of before, and a book about using the glitter paint and other stuff by the same company.

Postcard Swaps

I finished my postcards a couple of days ago for the lighthouse swap I'm in at FiberArtPostcards (a Yahoo group). I mailed them yesterday - here's one of them:




I did machine embroidery for this set.



I finished up my H is for . . . swap yesterday. This one is for ArtNTheMail (another Yahoo group). It took me the longest time to decide what H was for! LOL!!! I really wanted to do hibiscus, but I never could find the right image. So yesterday when I was looking through my fabric stash (uh, I mean inventory) I found some fabric with horses on it - so that's what I used. I haven't mailed them yet, but hopefully in the next day or two. Here is one of them:






What you can't see in the picture is that I used a glitter pen over the word horse. I don't know why glitter and sparkly stuff never shows up in a scan, but it doesn't.

More Fabric Postcards

Here are two of the postcards I've finished in the past few days. This one is for a swap using angelina fibers. I started with the batik background, added the angelina fibers, then fused the fish on top. I free motion quilted the whole thing, then free motion stitched around the fish to finish the edges. I think it turned out pretty good.



This one is for a swap called Cats Cats Cats. I fused the two background fabrics onto the stiff interfacing and quilted it. Then I fused the cat face and free motion stitched the edges (like I did to the fish). I also used a decorative stitch between the two background fabrics where they come together. I also couched down a flat ultrasuede-type yarn around the edges. I'm pretty happy with this one too - I just hope my swap partners like them.



I didn't get my computer today. I was really hoping for it. I think I was almost as excited to get it as I have been over the new car. When I talked to the guy I ordered it from last week, he told me that after I put in the order on the internet, he would call me for my credit card number right away. When he didn't call the day I ordered it (last Friday), I thought about calling him, but then I thought that maybe he didn't call because he was going to get the number when the computer came in. Finally on Tuesday I called him, and at first he couldn't find the order! I told him that I'd gotten an email confirmation from him and gave him the order number. Turns out my order went to a folder in his email account and he hadn't checked that folder, so he didn't see the order when it came in. Now a copy of the order also went to Nobilis, so I asked him if that would delay the order. He said he didn't think so because they had started on the order and were waiting to hear from him. But he had also told me last week that it usually takes 4 business days to get, and it's now been 5 and it's still not here. So I think it probably did delay the order. And I'm really kicking myself for not calling him as soon as I placed the order! Oh well, I guess it will get here sometime next week.

At least my Amazon order came in today. And it's a good thing, since one of the things I ordered is a book for my DH for father's day. I just tracked the order this afternoon, and it said it was scheduled to arrive on the 21st, so I had a few minutes of panic. But it came today after all. The other things I got are the second book in the Guenevere trilogy by Rosalind Miles and a book called Creating Sketchbooks for Embroiderers and Textile Artists by Kay Greenlees. I've never used sketchbooks before, but this appealed to me for some reason. At first glance, it looks pretty good.

New Postcard

I mailed this postcard off yesterday for a "Just Us Two" swap. I love making postcards!

G is for . . . Geisha

I am in a couple of swaps on the ArtsNTheMail Yahoo Group. The first one is Something Beginning with G. You are supposed to make a card showing something beginning with G. I thought and thought about various words beginning with G, and finally decided on Geisha. Here is my first card - I will have to make more, depending on how many sign up for the swap. But once I have my design figured out, the rest is easy. I will probably change up the fabrics, but the Geishas are from a rubber stamp by Stampin' Up.

Fish PostCard

I made a new postcard yesterday (finished it up today). This is for a one on one swap with Melinda - she posted on artsnthemail that she had some postcards to trade, and I said I wanted the yellow one, so she's saving it for me. Hope she likes what I've done! BTW, the eye is a Swarovski crystal (doesn't show up well in the scan).

Fabric Postcards

The first postcard swap I did was a very large group of 25, so I had to make 24 postcards. And I forgot to take pictures of them before I mailed them off! But a few of the recipients have been kind enough to send me pictures. So here are a few of the ones I made for my first swap:









I had originally thought that I would make them all the same, but after making about 8, I got bored. LOL! So then I started changing them up. I don't even have a picture of the first ones, but they were crazy quilt style. All of them were done on my embroidery machine, but I have been doing other techniques, too. It has become my latest obsession! LOL!!!

Laurel Burch Postcard Swap

I finished up some more postcards yesterday. These are for a Laurel Burch swap. Laurel Burch is an artist who creates fabrics, so these postcards had to have at least one of her fabrics in them. Mine use only her fabrics. I cut out the cats and appliqued them to the background fabric, and did some free motion quilting on the background. I then satin stitched the edges. Hope the other swappers like them!

Needle Punch Postcards

I have recently gotten into making fabric postcards. They are such fun to make, and there are a number of internet groups that do swaps of them. I made my latest creation with my Bernina needle punch accessory - which is another fun thing. I took yarn and wool roving and "punched" it into wool felt. The needles in the accessory are barbed and you don't use thread - the barbed needles make the yarn a part of the base fabric. Anyway - here are my postcards:





After making the flowers, I used my Viking to embroider the bees and the satin stitched edging.