This Year's Christmas Card

I know I'm getting a little ahead of myself with it being only February and Christmas a long 10 months in the future, however, this was going to be my 2011 Christmas card and when I got into the planning I realized it just wasn't going to get done on time. So now it's 2012's Christmas card.

I planned it out as I would any of my landscape quilts, with a watercolour painting first, a plotted pattern, and the choosing of fabric. What's different about this one is that it is only 7 inches by 8.5 inches in size. So my pattern pieces are miniscule and some I couldn't even pick up with my fingers; I needed tweezers. It became apparent that I couldn't sew the fabric together as I do with my larger landscape quilts and I had to find another way of putting it together. I chose to use a product called Heat 'n Bond which can be ironed onto the back of fabric where it leaves a residue that when heated with an iron will adhere the fabric to something else. So instead of sewing the pieces together I glued them using my iron onto another piece of fabric. Once that was done, I treated it as I would a large landscape quilt and thread painted on top to enhance the design. Then I placed batting and a backing fabric and a border on it and quilted the whole thing.

To complete the card I will manipulate the photograph in my computer, possibly putting a caption on it, then print off the photo and glue it to card stock, add an envelope and I'll be ready for the Christmas 2012 mailing.

Creating a Journal

I've always been interested in books, book making, altered books. So when I read an article on how to make my own journal, I was intrigued. I started folding and tearing watercolour paper for the pages. I found some leftover cardboard to use for making the covers which I covered with material. My theme for my journal is going to be "Nederland: My visits with my dad". My dad has Alzheimer's Disease and each year I go to Holland to visit him. Each year I notice changes in him and so I thought it would be nice to document my visits, what we did, things we said to each other, places we visited. So my journal is Red, White, and Blue on the outside. I attached a button to the front cover and the back cover and strung an elastic around them to keep the book shut. When the cover was complete, I bound the pages to the inside.

Gluing leftover fabric scaps to the inside
covers of the journal

After the pages were bound into the cover.



The outside of the cover

I will add the title to the cover and perhaps some other items. You can see a string of red, white and blue beads hanging from the spine. I will start collecting photos and items that have to do with the theme and before I go on my trip, I will prepare the pages by painting them and doodling and adding some pictures, leaving spaces for notes, ideas, comments and perhaps something my dad might write in it for me. If I have the pages 75 % done, I won't have to take along my paint, brushes and such. I just have to take my markers or pencil crayons and maybe a glue stick. It will be a nice reminder for my kids about who Opa is since they will most likely not ever see him again and a little something special for me to remember him by as the Alzheimer's slowly takes him away from us.

Inspiration Found in Value Village

Some of you know that I regularly visit Value Village, Goodwill and Salvation Army Stores to pick up art supplies. Last week I was in Value Village scouting out fabric and old jewelry and I came across this fantastic tie! The design was beautiful so I bought it and brought it home. I managed to make 4 fabric cards.

To make them into cards I machine quilted them, added beads, buttons, metalic embroidery thread, fabric, ribbon, yarn and pieces from old jewelry and voila! A repurposed tie!