Creativity Day 16 - Photos on Fabric

Okay, sometimes the internet is your friend and sometimes it is not.  After a few days of internet browser issues, that I hope have been resolved, I am back.

Among my hobbies is photography, I love taking pictures of everything, especially flowers.  Every year I like to photograph my garden with before and after pictures, but this year the drought in Texas has kept me from doing much gardening.  A few weeks ago we traveled to visit family in Indiana which up to that point had the perfect amount of rain to grow some of the most beautiful flowers I have seen all summer.  I spent a day taking pictures of some of the lovely scenery and I have decided to add a new technique to my postcard making.  Color photos on fabric is a new thing for me.  I have done several photo quilts but the photographs have always been in black and white so doing color photos will be a new experience.

I think this is going to make a beautiful greeting card for a birthday, housewarming or just to say hello, the message on the back is up to the sender.  I was surprised at how vivid the colors were on the fabric and I think I will finish up the postcard and maybe even do a bit of bead embellishment on a couple of the other pictures I have.  One more beautiful and easy to personalize idea to add to my shop.

Creativity Day 15 - Read All About It

"Always read stuff that will make you look good if you die in the middle of it."

P.J. O'Rourke

I had to skip yesterday's creativity project because my iron died.  Arrangements have been made and in lieu of flowers just send words of encouragement to the new addition to my sewing room.  I promise not to abuse her too much, I am getting a new ironing board to make sure that she feels more secure and doesn't topple over the edge as often as my last one did.

I love creating quick and easy little items in between my custom orders and larger quilting projects, so for today's post I am featuring a bookmark that I made to accompany my new book, "The Help" by Kathryn Stockett.

 This bookmark is made very much like the postcards, using the Pellon Peltex stabilizer and fusing fabric on both sides.  I combined 2 machine embroidery designs in a bright green color to embellish the front of the bookmark.   I then placed a ribbon between the top and the backing fabric and then satin stitched all around. This method catches the ribbon securely and gives all the edges a clean finish.

This was a fun little project made using fabric scraps and bits of ribbon that were not large enough to use for anything else.  There are some more ideas bouncing around in my head because there is an over abundance of scraps lying around my sewing room, so we will see what I come up with next.