Lace Flowers with Hand-Stitched Felt

Something very different for today's card!  Lace flowers with hand-stitched felt centers and green leaf ribbon.   It's beautiful with lots of texture and color contrast, and the felt squashes down nicely for mailing.  The hand-stitching was fairly quick to do, just overcast.  It's not perfectly even, which I feel adds to the simple charm of it. 

Card details:

• Card stock is Papertrey Ink (PTI) harvest gold (yellow) and Hawaiian shores (turquoise). 
• Embossing folder is Sizzix berry splash on one side of the card front.
• Felt is PTI harvest gold.
• Ribbon is leaf ribbon by PTI.  I was happy to find more colors at a fabric store, where I bought some white (easily to color with Copic markers) and some bright green.  
• Lace flowers are by Maya Road.  I haven't seen them available recently, so I might buy these instead and try to detach the layers.
• Embroidery floss is DMC #3011. 
• Technique:  I die cut the felt with a 5/8" circle die, then adhered it to the flower center with just a 1/4" square of Scor Tape.  I didn't want adhesive on the edges where I would be sewing.  Then I stitched the edges (simple overcast stitch) with a full 6-strand of floss.  I found it worked better not to stitch the felt to the lace flower, except to sew and knot the floss ends through the flower center.   
• The lace flowers are also adhered with Scor Tape: a 1/2" square in the center and 1/4" strips across the petals.  Although the lace is openwork, the Scor Tape stickiness doesn't come up through it.  The leaf ribbon is also adhered with 1/4" Scor Tape squares on some of the leaves.  I'd be afraid of liquid glue showing through on it, especially because the leaves have small slits where the veins are formed.   

Created for Operation Write Home, "supporting our nation's armed forces by sending blank handmade greeting cards to write home on, as well as cards of gratitude to encourage them." (279)

Felt Flower with Tiny Tag

Playing with some new felt. Though I love to use bright colors, the bottom card seemed a little too bright. I'm happier with the top card, where I replaced the red with an orangey-brown color.


Card details:

• Card stock and felt by Papertrey Ink (PTI): blueberry sky (blue card base and felt flower center), canyon clay (orangey-brown flower (felt), eyelet lace strip, and tiny heart on bottom card), pure poppy (red flower (felt), eyelet lace strip, and tiny heart on bottom card), harvest gold (yellow), simply chartreuse (deep yellow-green), and spring moss (light yellow-green tag).
• Dies are PTI eyelet lace border and tiny tags. Embossing folder is Lifestyle Crafts diamonds and dots.
  
• The tag is tied on with bright yellow embroidery floss and adhered with foam tape. It's a 2-layer tag using the solid (no heart) tag as a base. I put Scor Tape all across the base tag layer, then pressed down the heart tag on top. That left an opening with Scor Tape inside, and a solid base to adhere my tiny contrasting heart.
• Sentiment "love" is computer-printed with green ink in "Stencil Std" font (bold).
• Flower is punched with 1-1/4" EK Success scalloped circle. Flower center is hand cut. I will buy some dies for the future. Although I was able to punch the PTI felt, it wasn't easy. I had to punch it part way, then turn the felt a bit inside the punch, then finish punching. More force than I like to use, and probably not so good for my punch. And would only work with a symmetrical shape.
  
• I sewed french knots with bright yellow embroidery floss, then pulled my thread tails to the front (4 threads at a time) and separated the threads.
  

Created for Operation Write Home, "supporting our nation's armed forces by sending blank handmade greeting cards to write home on, as well as cards of gratitude to encourage them." (133)