For the mail

While my husband and son were playing golf, I grabbed a little bit of time in the studio to make a birthday postcard for my aunt in Germany.  She's turning 93!  She's a bit feeble getting around, but her mind is still sharp as a whip.  I used fabric from a previous water color crayon project for the background, along with some gold foil for sparkle.

I also thought it would be nice to include a bookmark in the next batch of books I send to my daughter out West at camp.  I decided to use another bit of leftover crayon fabric, along with the foil.  The bookmark's double-sided with her name on one side, and a freezer paper stencil and a few failed gold paint accents on the other. I muted some of the contrast with some bronze pearl mist. I had ironed the freezer paper cutout over the painted area to keep it clean, but the mist unexpectedly soaked through the paper.  Now the paint's not as white,  but I actually like it better.

I didn't have any international stamps at home so I had to buy one at the post office this morning.  I asked the clerk to hand cancel the card to show everything was paid for, but was told it was likely that the self-adhesive stamp would fall off during transit.  What to do?  I was told that putting tape over a stamp is a big post office no-no and I didn't have any glue in my purse (go figure).  Here's a question for those of you with experience sending fabric cards through the mail: what do you do to ensure the stamp stays put?

These were fun quick projects to get me back to the studio after my time away.  Tomorrow I'm hoping to find some time either to start on my Memory quilt for my Latitude Quilts group (I'm still vacillating between ideas) or to pick up a quilt that's been on my design wall for years (yes, years!) and finally quilt it.