A couple of weeks ago, I signed up to participate in the Great Big Stitched Postcard Swap 2013 hosted by the website, Do What You Love. Each participant creates a regular sized postcard using any kind of materials desired. The only requirement is it has to have some kind of stitching on the postcard and fit the current theme of the swap. The theme of this swap is “Celebrate”. Then they pair you up with another swap participant, you create your card, mail it to your swap partner, and watch for a creative card to come to your mailbox.

In pondering what to “celebrate” on my postcard, I could not think of anything more deserving of celebration than the recent news of new grandbabies joining our family next year.

I decided to make the background of my postcard a quilt with fun designs on the quilt squares. I made my own stamps from craft foam. (If you missed our post about making stamps and printing your own fabric, you may stop and read it now.)I stamped these designs onto fabric using fabric inks.I stitched bias tape around the edges of my “quilt”. To add soft puffs to my quilt, I layered polyester stuffing between the quilt top and a piece of heavy card stock for the postcard backing. I machine quilted the rows of blocks all the way through the card stock. (Hint: Save old sewing machine needles that get dull for such a time as this.) Using embroidery floss, I tied knots in the center of each quilt square.

I needed a picture of baby footprints and pulled out my baby book, scanned my footprints into the computer, shrunk them to the right size, and printed them onto decorative paper.I also printed out the words “Celebration of new life!” onto decorative paper, drew a blanket stitch design around the paper on each word and attached the papers to the quilt top with super strength Glue Dots. And now I will show you the finished product…Well, that’s the backside! I plan to put the postcard into an envelope to mail it to my swap partner who lives in the United Kingdom. Here’s the front:

This project was lots of fun to do. I am excited to see what my swap partner has created. If this sounds like something you would like to do, I would imagine the event will happen again. This is the 6th Postcard Swap they have done. You can keep an eye on our blog and we will let you know when the next sign-up will be happening (because I want to do it again) or you can go to Do What You Love and sign up for their emails.