Machine Quilted Valentines

Happy valentines day everyone!  I have always loved making valentines and this year was no exception.  I stitched 8 different hearts on whole cloth postcards for my valentine project.  I do love to machine quilt so this was a good excuse to do more of what I love.

The first three were stitched in pink thread for the design and white for the background.  The “binding” is a strip of fabric with fusible on the back cut with a wavy rotary cutter and pressed around the outside edges to finish them off.
These are less frilly and are for my two grandsons.  Hopefully they won’t think they are too girly.  Red fabric with white thread says happy valentines day, right?
White on white fabric and red stitching for the heart designs on these three.  As you can see I do love to stitch feathers and what a better place to use them than on hearts.

I made the back of the card from a printed phrase, poem, sentiment printed on card stock and that too was fused to the back of the card.  By the way, the front fabric was fused to Peltex or Timtex which is a thick, stiff stabilizer.  I quilted the cards, fused on the back then fused on the binding.  Ta-Da done!

I finished them up on Wednesday, popped them into addressed envelopes and delivered them to the post office to mail.  I always mail these kinds of fabric postcards in envelopes to keep them clean and prevent them from getting caught in post office machinery.  Hopefully they will arrive in time for Valentines Day and be enjoyed by all.

Until later,
Lynn

Heart Quilt–Happy Valentines Day

Today is Valentines day so you get to see a couple of doll beds from my collection that have hearts on them.  As you can tell from the photo they are very tiny as that is a regular sized thimble sitting on the table with them.  To read the blog post where I wrote about how I made them just click on the link here.

Have a great day!
Lynn

Pop-Up Valentines

I like to make my 4 grandchildren homemade Valentine cards each year and this year printed the above pop-up card from this pattern I found on the web.  I printed them on red card stock and proceeded to cut them out.  I just could hardly wait to see how they would look as I LOVE pop-up cards.I used an Exacto Knife with a nice sharp point.  The short lines I cut free hand but used a metal edged ruler to keep the longer cuts straight.  I used the tool below to crease the fold lines.  An empty ball point pen would work too or maybe a toothpick to help score the fold lines.  The card is then gently folded to make the heart pop-up.  Make sure the printed lines are on the back side where they won’t show before you fold the card.  Crease the folds well after it is all eased into the pop-up heart.

   

I had a “Happy Valentine’s Day” stamp so I stamped on the space under the heart.  It was too much of a problem to figure out the word placement on the computer since they would have had to be printed on the back side of the printed pop-up lines so it was either stamp them or print my wording by hand.I used tape dots from this dispenser by Elmer's to stick the inside pop up part to the outside cover but you could use regular double stick tape or glue.  I think scrap bookers use this kind of thing all the time to secure layers.  I put the dots on one side of the pop-up section then stuck it inside the white printed card.  After that side was adhered I put the tape dots on the second side and pressed it together to make sure they were all stuck well.  DO NOT put tape dots on the actual pop up part, or guess what, it won’t pop-up.When I cut the outside white card cover I cut it about 1/8” larger than the red pop-up insert.  On a couple of the cards I had to do a little trimming to make the edges even but most of the pieces fit together pretty well.
The finished cards are all ready to mail.  I printed the graphics from the internet and tried to pick something special for each of the grandkids.  I also made one to send to my mother too.  Just Google “Pop-Up Card patterns” and you will find lots of designs to try if you want to make some too.

Can’t wait to hear from them when they get the cards as I think they are so cute and the pop-up part was so much fun to make.

Lynn