Button Flower QTC

These little cards were made for the QTC Button Flower swap I joined. We had to use buttons as part of the flower in some way. First I quilted the red background with some black thread. Then I added the silk flower base and then the buttons. But I felt they needed something else, so I added some colorful beads to spring out behind the buttons.




As I was making the ones with yellow centers I thought to add some yellow french knots on the background to give it a little something extra for my eye to look at and some texture.

Crazy Stiched QTC

These four ATCs or QTC's (quilters trading cards) were made for the Fabricards QTC: #6 swap. We had to come up with any thing that embodies the number six. I had a good phrase in my mind when I signed up for this swap but a couple weeks later I totally forgot what I was going to use....Then I spent weeks trying to remember what it was till I finally decided to just make something different. So here they are. I used 6 Fabrics. Then I embellished them with some hand embroidery and other goodies. I like the look of them. The purple fabrics are leftover scraps from the costume I made for the community play that I participated in not too long ago. I still have lots of the dark purple fabric left so you may see it again in future projects.

Some ATCs

These top ATCs was made for the QTC: Number series. These are four swaps #3 and #4. We had to make a card that depicts three or four of something. I actually made the #4 one first. I made mini four patches. and with the left over scraps from the four patches, I cut them into Triangles for my three card- "Triangles have Three sides."

This card on the right was made for the Fabricards QTC: Patchwork swap. I used some leftover pinwheels I had sitting in my scrap bin. and the Candy ATC was made for the Art 4 Mail Red and White swap.

Hearts, Hearts, and more Hearts

These are a couple of cards I made for valentines day. The first one was for two swaps one just called Hearts an the other Patchwork Heart. I like to combine ideas when I can, since that is the hardest part for me, coming up with the idea. Most of my time spent making these cards is spent trying to come up with the ideas for them. Once the idea comes though the cards get made very quickly.

This next Heart I made for a swap with the theme of Weaving. The only thing that kept coming to mind for this swap was those woven heart baskets that are around during valentines day, so I made a flat one to mail out to my partners.


This last card is an ATC. I printed this image on some white muslin, I figured it was perfect for this swap. There are all types of hearts hiding in this image. I counted at least seven.

IFQ ATC Round 11

I signed up for 4 sets of ATCs for round 11 of the IFQ Alphabet ATC swap. I was assigned the letters "Y", "F" and the numbers Zero, and One. For "Y" I did an all Yellow card







For the number 1 I did "One lone snowflake". I picked up these fancy snowflake brads on sale and knew they would go perfect with some of the projects I am working on.








Zero was the hardest to come up with. I didn't want to send out a blank ATC with Zero stuff on it. I was stumped on this one for a while. I finally settled on a pure white card. It has ZERO color on it. I did some feather and meandering quilting with some white thread on some white muslin. Then I added some white ribbon and added a white satin stitch on the edge. It is hard to see the stitching in this photo, but it is there. :)





For "F" I did F is for Frog. I had lots of frog fabric scraps that were just the right size for these little ATCs. I added some iron on Gems and googley eyes to bring some personality to the frongs.

Again, I am dissatisfied with my scanner, it just won't scan objects well unless they are flat. The stuff up front is clear, but then the stuff in the back is blurry. I wish I could get it all of it to come in clear like I could with my old scanner. Bah, why do things have to break and the new things you get to replace them never work as well as the old ones. Ah well...

The picture posting deadline for this swap was yesterday, so I should find out soon who I will send my ATCs to. Can't wait to see what I get in return. That is the fun of the Alphabet ATC swap. :)

Candy Canes

For me, Candy Canes are one of the major symbols of Christmas. So I decided to put some in postcard and ATC form. This postcard was made for my Fabricards group. I punched out some candy canes with my Sizzix then used the leftover waste fabric for the border. I hate to throw stuff away even if it is a small bit and I can usually find a use for even the smallest scrap of fabric. :)


This little bitty ATC was made for ART4Mail's Christmas ATC swap. It has red and green holly and Candy Canes. Just a little sampling of some of the things that get me in the Christmas Spirit.

Holiday Beading

I spent the days before Thanksgiving working on my Holiday QTC's for Fabricards. I used the same idea for each card, but each one turned out slightly different mainly because of the layout of the red fabric. These were fun to make. I made a total of 5, but forgot to take a photo of the 5th one before I put it in the envelope to mail out. Of course I made one for myself. :)

Two more ATCs

I finished up two ATCs the other day. One for my Postcard Pizzazz group. The theme for this one was landscape. I had actually received all mine from the group before I even made mine. It was a good thing because two of the ladies wrapped their ATCs in some extra scrap fabrics. Well it was just enough scraps to make my landscapes with. One was the lovely brick fabric, the other was the white flowers in the grass. I used my own blue for the sky. Then added some machine stitching over all of it. My first thought when I saw the brick fabric was to make a landscape scene that resembled the wall in the movie Stardust. But as I made it and looked at it, it appears to me to be more of a cobblestone walkway, which is still nice.

The next one was for a one to one swap with one of the members of Fabricards and is titled "Hen House". I had fun putting this one together. This card is the size of a baseball card, so you can imagine how small the chicken parts are. It was a nice fun challenge for me. Again I machined stitched over the pieces to make sure they stayed on and to give it some dimension. I drew the eyes on with a fine point pen and trying to get them both look the same without screwing them up was harder than I thought. She looks like she may have one lazy eye, but I didn't want to keep drawing over them for fear of turning them into two big black blobs. I do like the over all effect though, she seems to have her own personality with those eyes. :)

IFQ ATC Round 10

These sets of ATCs were made for round 10 of the IFQ ATC Alphabet swap. I was assigned the letters E and K and the numbers 8 and 9.

I chose to make E is for Easter Egg, K is for Keyhole, 8 pink flowers, and 9 planets. It is hard to see in the photo, but I quilted some leaves on the pink flowers with some light pink thread, and for the Keyhole I used a new technique of modge podging the image onto my fabric. I just received a V is for Vampira card from another postcard swap that was done this way and I loved it, so I thought I would try it out myself.

Pizzazz QTCs

Postcard Pizzazz had a quite a few QTC swaps with colors as themes. One of them was called Summer Glitz 2 for 1. We each made a gold and silver QTC and sent it to our partners. Here are my two. In the beginning I read the rules wrong and was making ONE card with silver and gold on it. So that is why my silver card has some traces of gold. I had already finished the silver one when I realized my mistake. But the ladies in my swap said they were fine receiving the silver card the way it was. I was glad of that otherwise I would have had to make another whole set of silver ones.


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These were made for the Pink QTC swap. I took bits and pieces of all my pink fabrics and ironed them onto the peltex and then added a chain stitch to cover up the raw edges. Then I added some form of embellishment to all the pieces, except the very thing pink stripped one at the very bottom left. It was too small to add anything. I didn't want it to get stuck under the needle down there while I had to sew on the edging. These were the only ones I remembered to take a group photo of. The others I had put in envelopes and had them ready to mail out. So I had to take a photo of the ones I saved for myself.

This one is my version of a BLUE QTC. The center blue is what was leftover from me trying to make blue inchies. It is s stiff piece of Peltex covered with some light blue fabric. I can't seem to throw anything away. Even if it is only one inch. I think to myself, I can use that in some other project in the future. And sure enough, the little one inch covered square finally found a new home on this blue QTC.








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I liked the feel and texture of the raised blue square on my blue QTC, so I decided to try that same technique in my purple QTCs. This time I punched out the letter P in purple covered peltex. Instead of sewing it down with yarn, as I did in the blue QTCs, I used a blanket stitch to hold the letter down. Underneath the P is some shiny purple fabric. It is hard to tell that it shines on the photo, but in person it looks great. I couched some cording around the shiny fabric to hide its raw edges, and then finished the corners of the card with some free motion quilting. Once all the QTCs have been traded I will have a wonderful unique rainbow in 3.5in x 2.5in rectangles.

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My time wasn't used making just QTCs lately, I also made a regular sized postcard.

I had plenty of butterflies and dragonflies left over from my Jars and Bottles Swap, so I used them for a few more postcards for my Art2Mail #46 swap. This time I added some grass for them to fly around in with a nice blue sky and the card wouldn't be complete without some free motion quilting in the graa and sky.

Where did August Go??

Wow, I can't believe I haven't posted anything here in over a month. Were did August go? It came and went faster than I anticipated. I guess I was busy with kids, vacation, the last days of summer, and school starting that the month just flew by. But I was not unproductive, I did manage to find time to create a few goodies for the ladies in my swap groups:




These three sets of ATCs (artist trading cards) were made for the Alphabet/Numbers swap on IFQ. These were for round 9. I was assigned the Number 4, the Letter N (Night), and the Letter T (Tiny Turtle). These were mailed out on the 29th of August. This is my third time participating in these rounds. The goal is to collect all the letters of the alphabet and the numbers 0-9. I have just been putting them in a basket on my coffee table to enjoy them as I receive them, but now I think it is time to make the Alphabet wall hanger to see how many I have of each letter, and to see which ones I need to fill in my alphabet gaps.



This card was made for a "My Garden" swap in the Art4Mail yahoo group. When I signed up for this one, I automatically thought of my vegetable garden. It is the only type of garden I have. I definitely don't have a green thumb and I am lucky my tomato plants have survived the whole summer this year. I hand cut out each of these vegetables and appliqued them onto the card.





Here I decided to try a new technique I saw on someone else's web page. They had taken yarns and other fibers to create a background. So I tried it myself. I put a piece of decor bond, sticky side up and layered orange, blue and purple yarns on it. Then I ironed it down to make them stick. They were a little fuzzy and I wasn't sure they would go through the mail without a clear envelope, so I used some tule and layered it over the threads to hold down the fibers that were sticking up. Then I added some orange fish and finished it up.


I was just playing around with some leftover shapes that I had cut out and came up with this card. I had punched out a lot of clouds out of white fabric earlier in the year for some other post cards and I had a few left over, So i turned them into a "Every cloud has a silver lining" card. I used some silvery crochet thread and hand couched it to the bottom of the clouds.


The Alphabet... The theme for this swap was " What A means..". I had the idea of Alphabet automatically but wasn't sure how to put that on a card. Then I saw this image online. It is a actually a quiz. Every letter comes from a logo of a famous American brand. I fancied it up with some zigzag stitches in between the letters and some green and yellow iron on gems. I mailed it to its recipient and told her to email me when she got it and I would send her the answers. I had fun with this one. :)


This next card was made for a "Jars and Bottles" swap for my ArtsNtheMail group. I picked some organza, cut it in the shape of a jar and put some bright butterflies and a dragonfly escaping the jar. I really like the way this one turned out.









Here is my finished Light house card. I embroidered the lighthouse onto some blue fabric and then free motioned quilted around it. On the bottom I tried to mimic the waves that were already in the embroidery design. If you look close you can see the curvy waves of the original design blending with my own free motion design. On the top I changed the free motion to an echo design, echoing the shapes of the top of the light house and the clouds. I love the texture that the quilting designs have made. This is one I like to hold and feel it as well as look at.

Green Delights

I have been working mostly green lately. Below are some green QTC's, (cutsies, or Quilters Trading Cards) that I made for Postcard Pizzaz group. Partners are not even assigned yet, but these are ready early. First time that has happened. I usually finsish my items the day before mail date is set. ;) But for these, I was using my machine to embroider lighthouses for another swap, (those will be posted later when I finish them) and needed something to do in between thread changes, so I did all these green QTC's by hand, except for the border. I did the border after the machine was done with all the embroidery I had set up for it.


I stitched down the green fleece trim with solid green beads. Then I added little leaves to make it look sort of like a vine. On all the polk a dots that were not too close to the edge, I added some transparent shiny green beads. All green. :)



This card is also for Postcard Pizzaz. It is for a 1 to 1 swap. I really like making these. This is my sixth one. But I have about 20 more ready for the hand embroidery to be added. Such fun. ;) I can't seem to just sit and watch TV, or movies, or play on the computer for that matter without some thing in my hands to work on. Just as an example, I finished this postcard while playing WOW last night during the down time in between arena ques. :)

QTC's and More

I have been playing around with more QTC's (Quilters Trading Cards), which can be pronounced cutsies if you like. :) They are the quilters version of the ATC (artist trading card). Here are three I have made recently. Two were for some red QTC swaps I was in and one was for a swap called QTC: gone fishing.

I have also been working on more postcards...

These were made for a fun swap called a Rainbow swap. Each person in the swap picked a color of the rainbow and was in charge of mailing out that color to the rest of the group. I picked red, of course. ;)

I made a few extras, one for myself and for some other people who enjoy the color red.

Close up of one of the red postcards. I did some meandering quilting on this red fabric, then added some seed beads on the shadows of the fabric design.

More frogs... I really enjoy doing hand work on these novelty frog fabrics. This time I tried a new flower with a viney stem. I love the way it turned out. This one went out in the mail for a one to one swap. I hope the recipient loves it as much as I do. These frog cards, with all the hand embroidery stitches, are some of my hardest to mail out. I would really love to keep them all. :)

The fourth is coming up so of course I signed up for some festive 4th postcard swaps. This card is one I made for those swaps. I took bits and pieces of red, and blue fabric and covered the card. Then I placed tulle over the bits and did some free hand meandering to keep the tulle in place. I wonder-undered a white firecracker on the top and stitched it down. I finished it off with a thin zig zag stitch on the the edge and sent them off in the mail.

IFQ ATC's Round 8

I finished up my last of three sets of ATC's for IFQ. Pictures are due tomorrow, but I posted mine today. I had two sets already finished and ready to go, I just had to finish up my "R is for Rocky River". I like to post all the photos at the same time so I waited till today to post the photos when the edge on the R cards were finished.

They were going to be R is for Rocky Road, but the wavy road I punched out of fabric looked more like a river when I was finished. I first thought, "oh, a dark blue road would bring some color to the card instead of such a dark black." But the waviness of the road made it look more like a river so I changed the name to Rocky River. My other letter was B, so I made a Blue Balloon in Bubbles. And my last assignment was the #6. I racked my brain for weeks trying to come up with something for that, but all that kept coming to my mind was the Six Fingered Man from the movie, The Prince's Bride. So I printed the six fingered hand out on fabric, as well as a little image of his face and put a quote from the movie and sewed it all together.

I should get my partners on the 19th or 20th and then swapping can begin.

"Rocky River" & "Blue Ballon in Bubbles"

"Six Fingered Man"