It's a Postcard Kind of Day!

Today was VERY cold.  It's minus 20C and since it's the weekend, I just stayed home all day with the kids.  We cleaned the whole house by 10 am and spent the rest of the day crafting, gaming, and playing 'restaurant'.  I even had company and managed a nap too!  Now it's nearly time to make supper so I thought I had better post.  In between all that, I made postcards today.  I made a LOT of them.  Wanna see?  I started with these from the sample book Jesica gifted me.  I heart recycling!!

RickRack circa 1970... maybe older.  It's from a box I got from my friend Irene.  They belonged to her late grandmother.  I went to pick them up from Irene's house via a Freecycle post a couple months back.  I took one look at her smile as she spoke and interrupted, "Who are you?  I know you!".  We went to school together from grade 8 - 12 in another city.  That would be more than 25 years ago!  And there we stood, on the road in front of her little house while my children sat in the van yelling, "Come on MAMA, let's GO!!".  She looks the same.  She is still in touch with the art teacher and was pretty excited to hear I was still into art.  I'll have to show her these postcards.  Here's a couple.  They look like gaudy wallpaper.  ; ) 

 

 

They are all free motion stitched if you click and look closer.  Here's the rickrack.  I used it in the little mini-patchwork quilt cards.  Cute hey?

 

I did some couching onto other postcards.  I was trying to make snow.

It looks pretty fluffy!  Here's a couple more finished postcards.

I love making postcards because you can try anything and everything without having to commit to a huge project.  It's like ADD sewing.  I use double sided fusible stiffened felt for the core.  You do you the whole top first, and then you fuse a plain backing on.  Only after that, you add the border stitching just like you would do your binding last on a quilt.  You need to finish your top onto the core first so that your backing fabric (added later) is free of stitches.  Did that make sense?  That keeps the back of the postcard clean for writing notes, addresses and stamping it.  

 

The wreaths turned out nice.  I used metallic thread and a curly embroidery stitch.  I went around in circles a few times with it and then added the french knots and rickrack.  I made a couple of these, though each one is different.

And I love using this sheer ribbon.  It's even the right size for postcards.  It's very wide on the roll.  I love to use this stuff in my landscapes over the sky and for snow.  ($1 / Dollarstore.)

Now I have to figure out who gets what.  : )  Some might be swapped too.  Hope you enjoyed looking!

~Monika