When Ann first invited us all to take part in a holiday card swap it was mentioned that our theme could be anything, it didn’t have to be particularly Christmassy…..and so mine wasn’t. I have to say that as more and more of the cards are now being shown, a part of me wishes I had gone with a Christmas theme, but it’s only a small part! My partner in the swap, Caterina, got in first with her card to me which I love and I felt that gave me permission to do what I really fancied doing! I won’t show Caterina’s card in case she’s going to do a post about it but let’s just say we were thinking along very similar lines.
I decided to make a mini Autumn/Winter forest floor mounted on to a 5” x 7” card. Starting with an off cut of Lutrador I used acrylics and Inktense to paint it grey with hints of green, or so I thought! Once I started to distress the Lutradur with the heat gun, what had looked very grey suddenly became very green as the green Inktense intensified. Rather than start again I decided to go with the flow and add more grey where needed later.
Next I got out my box of Tyvek and Lutradur samples to see if there were any pieces of bark or leaves already made which I could use for this project.
All of the leaves turned out to be too large for the scale of the card apart from a small one attached to the luggage label on one of my workshop samples. This was the ideal shape and size so I used it as my template for the leaf to go on the card.
I had more luck with the tree bark as I found a few workshop samples, one of which hadn’t been painted and was the perfect size.
I can spend ages arranging and rearranging the parts, distressing the smallest pieces of Lutradur to get pleasing shapes and checking I’ve made enough to cover the background. Once I was happy with the amount of pieces I had the bark was embroidered and everything stitched down to a piece of brown cotton fabric.
And this is the finished card complete with Colonial Knots, felt pebbles and the little leaf. OK, it doesn’t scream “Christmas” but, as a keepsake, I hope it will remind Caterina of the friendships she’s formed with the F&F group and of happy Christmas 2023 memories.
Once I’d got Caterina’s card in the post I caved in and made a reindeer themed “Christmassy” card for my local textile group swap. After trying, and failing miserably, to draw a simple reindeer I turned to clip art and found this cute reindeer pose.
I had so much fun making this one that I tried another pose, got carried away and went in to production!
These have been cut from fabric scraps and free motion stitched on to patterned card (which makes a great stabiliser!) I figured the antlers and legs would be a bit fiddly in fabric so I simply used a marker pen for those.
Cards have never really interested me in the past but these were such fun to make, I can see myself creating more to put aside for next year!
I hope all our readers have had a peaceful Christmas and here’s to a healthy, happy and creative 2024 for all of us!