Drapery Fabric Note Card Tutorial

I made these cards for a very special friend of mine who lives in West Texas.  
Her initials are DL...so if DL is reading this, then, uhm, -Look, over there...something shiny!...  
Whew...gotta distract the girl...these are for her birthday.

Remember this post...Silk Poppy Pin Tutorial and how I told you how I scored about 30 upholstery/drapery fabric sample books on Craigslist?...Well, for these cards I used the bottom of the fabric that has the glued paper backing.  It's perfect because the fabric doesn't fray or unravel. I just cut along the pink lines I have marked here...

... and I ended up with lots of these :

Beautiful colors and lots of textures.  The added bonus is that these books come with fabrics that are color coordinated so there is no guessing when choosing a color scheme.

I always try to have a stash of store bought blank cards because you just never know when you are going to need one, or several.  I usually buy cards at Hobby Lobby when they are 50% off .  

So, take one card, fold in half and add hot glue to the front, only on one side first like this:

quickly and with lots of care (hot glue is, well, um, HOT), place a fabric strip to the glue...

and repeat till you get to the end of the card...

and then the back should look like this:

Notice that the fabric strips are not lined up with the card...that's okay because now you are going to do this:

Trim the card on all sides. Now this step is not necessary but I do it just to get a crisper looking card.  I iron the inside of the card (the side that has the fabric) with 2 or 3 swift passes of the iron.  This remelts the lumpy hot glue and gives you an even glue coverage between the card and the fabric.  Once you iron the card, place it immediately between two heavy books and let it cool down. Also, just in case you don't have sample fabric books just laying around, you can use double sided scrapbook paper. 

Aren't these beautiful?

I made a set of 12

Add a bow...

 and they are ready to be mailed off to my sweet friend DL.  And DL, if you did read this that's okay. 

Thanks for being my friend; 584 miles away. Happy Birthday.

Happy Birthday, Ms. Janet!

Today is Ms. Janet's birthday. Ms. Janet is my son's pre-K teacher and she is the most loving, giving, patient, and fab teacher I know.

When I told my son, over the weekend, that Ms. Janet was going to have a birthday on Tuesday, he was super excited and wanted to MAKE Ms. Janet something special.  Notice how I typed "make".  He didn't want to "buy" or "get"; he wanted to MAKE something special for his teacher.  Ahhhh... I have taught them (he and his sister) well.  

A little over a year ago, we implemented a NO BUY policy for gifts.  Any gift we give, whether it's for a birthday, wedding, baby shower...just any gift is MADE by me or the kids or by both. Usually, if I make or sew something, the kids will make the wrapping paper (freezer paper/crayons/markers) and wrap the gift.  

So my son dictated his vision of the perfect gift for Ms. Janet.  First, he wanted me to paint Ms. Janet a t-shirt with a freezer paper stencil of a flower.  Then, he wanted me to sew a matching skirt to go with the t-shirt and he even pulled out a nice fabric from my stash. Last, he added to this ambitious gift giving list a small handmade pillow so Ms. Janet "can put her tooth in and the tooth fairy can give her money".  Um....huh?

The tooth fairy pillow request did me in.  I knew I had to give this child some guidance as to what would be a nice and not too personal gift for Ms. Janet.  I pulled out the fabric paints and note cards.  I left them on the dinning table and set the bait. I sat on the sofa and channel surfed. I waited patiently until, SNAG!! He took it.  "Hey mom, what if I make Ms. Janet a card with my thumbs?" (can you tell we have made these before?) Yes!! All nighter sewing marathon averted. 

So, this is what both he and I came up with.  He picked the paint. I brushed his thumbs with the paint.  He placed it on the card.  I drew in the details.  Done.  My son could not be happier.  And I hope Ms. Janet is happy with her note cards from my son.

My son's thumb prints

My son's thumb prints turned turtles, chicks and birds

Aren't these super cute?

What a couple of swirls can do for a thumb print.