Swap Part II

As seems to always happen I was getting down to the deadline and needed to crank out my post cards. I discovered that one of my side tables works rather well in front of the couch, score, and I set up my work station.

After sending Mother’s card I knew I wanted to add in a sky of some sort. The white was just too white. I tried some bright blue tissue paper that I had first, but it was much too dark of a color. So instead I broke out the water colors and painted on a very watered down blue. Inevitably I’m working with not such heavy card stock so the cards were rather warped but I loved the paint color. Seriously watercolors are just such fun.

Next up was the grass. I spent a good bit of the evening cutting layering and gluing my stalks. Now I knew from the pro-type that they really wouldn’t survive the mail so well. At first I thought about extra glue or even covering the whole thing in maybe a watered down modge-podge. But that was a very messy idea. And I’m sure the tissue paper and water colors would not have played well with watered down glue. So I went rather utilitarian and used packing tape  It worked remarkably well and almost make my cards look downright fancy….or something.

After putting everything where I wanted it and sewing everything on I cut out each card. In order to keep the crochet from unraveling rather than cut the bottom edge I just folded the bottom under. When I mailed my prototype I knew that I would need a back of some form because of the knots on the other side of the card. Glue is always an option but I (unfortunately) know that glue does not always survive the mail. So instead I opted to just quickly sew a second card onto the back. It was simple, easy, and I love how it came out. And as an added bonus if the recipient wants they can totally just snip the white threads from either side and use the flower for something else.

Now my sewing machine is pretty crazy retro. It can be quite finicky so I wasn’t sure how it would handle it. But it seems to have much more problems sewing anything lightweight (it’ll barely sew quilting cottons) and rocked the card stock stitching with no problems when I sewed mother’s card. Unfortunately with the addition of the packing tape things got a bit more squirrely. It still worked but the feeder feet were struggling at times and so the stitching is rather un-even.

It should also be mentioned that I have a mild fascination with stamps. The post office just has so many fun ones that you can buy. So I love to calculate the postage online then use a good variety of stamps to mail fun things – yup I’m slightly crazy.

All in all a fun project and I hope the recipients enjoy them. Similarly to last year it was a bit intimidating because really I’m not much of an artist. I’m much more crafty. I’m looking forward to seeing what creations I’ll be receiving!