From the Heart

Do you remember back in elementary school making hand made Valentines?  It was one of my favorite activities.  The paper lace doilies, the red & pink construction paper and of course...the glitter!  This year I decided to make hand made valentines to sell, just for fun!  I have some 8 1/2 X 11" card stock and envelopes that will fit the card once the paper is folded in half so now all I needed was a design.  I decided to make a prototype and show it to a couple of people to get their feed back.  I had made a heart shaped bowl out of this really nice blue fabric that had an oriental apple blossom theme.   The base of this heart shaped bowl was a vivid red that matched very nicely.  The idea here was to cut out a 8 1/2 X 11" rectangle from the apple blossom fabric, decorate it with a heart theme using the red fabric and adhere the entire rectangle, using adhesive to the card stock.   I drew a heart that was a bit wonkie onto the front of the apple blossom fabric and then cut out from the red fabric a piece large enough to cover the heart.  I placed the red fabric behind the apple blossom fabric with the right side of both fabrics facing up.  I then stitched around the heart I drew several times using a couple of different stitches,  Next, I CAREFULLY cut out the center of the heart from the apple blossom fabric along the stitching so that the red fabric that was beneath it would show, being careful to cut the red fabric beneath it.  I then adhered the apple blossom fabric to the card stock using basting adhesive and trimmed it with my rotary cutter.   This was a very time consuming process so I decided tht the rest of the valentines I made I would adhere the heart to the top of the background fabric rather than made a peep-a-boo heart.  The people I showed this to had a very positive response and liked the idea of making a card that was covered with fabric.  One person suggested that I put one of the cards on display in a frame so that people could see that it could have other uses once it ws given as a card. 

The next card I made I cut out two hearts one smaller than the other and adhered the smaller heart to the larger one and the adhered the larger heart to a Kaffee Fascett fabric.  I then zig-zagged around the larger heart to applique it to the background fabric and blanket-stitched the inner heart so that it to would be appliqued in place.  I think it made a very attractive combination and was a bit less time consuming.  It is my plan to make a few more Valentines using different combinations of fabrics.  The Arts Co-op in Shelburne Falls, MA that I belong to is having a Valentine's Day themed show in February and I plan on putting these cards into the show.  In the mean time, I get to play with all these fun fabrics...YES!