Spring or Easter Cards

Eggs Waiting to Become Cards

How are you all doing? I have been, for the most part, enjoying my home time. I've been organizing, playing with Dave the kitten, and, of course, stitching. One day last week I was feeling bonkers and I decided to change things up a bit and put aside my embroidery. I got out some water color paints, pencils and markers and made some egg shaped Easter/Spring cards. There was an odd size piece of watercolor paper in my stash and I painted stripes of color in soft pastels. Pattern and detail were added with watercolor pencils and thin Micron markers.

Decorated Paper

Next I made an an egg shape template on an old manilla folder and cut the shape out with an Exacto knife.  As you can see from the photo I removed the egg and used the remaining outline of the shape. That way I could see the placement of the designs on the egg. I traced the pattern onto the watercolor paper and cut out the eggs.

Tracing the Template

I thought about writing greetings on the back of the egg but decided to create a card that would open. As you can see, I folded colored paper in half and glued the egg very near the fold.

Egg Positioned Near Fold

I cut around the egg but left about an inch an a half of the fold intact. so it could be opened.

Card Opened

Egg Cut Out With Border

Next is writing some notes and getting them in the mail! Then I will get back to those birds and some other stitching projects I've got going.

If you're feeling bored with your projects try something different for awhile. It keeps your creating time more interesting!
I'm wishing you all the best of health, peace and contentment as we navigate this new way of being. 

Here's a little Dave to make you smile.

Dave and Embroidery Floss Storage

Dave!

As I write this I hope you are all healthy, practicing social distancing and going out only when necessary. A couple weeks ago we got a six month old kitten and that has made staying in a lot more entertaining. We named him Dave!

 Aside from playing with Dave, I've  been doing a lot of organizing and cleaning up and out. One of the first projects I tackled was my embroidery floss storage. I keep my floss on those little bobbins with the numbers written on them. I had them in a plastic storage bin with drawers and I rigged up a system to keep them in nice neat rows. Unfortunately, about a month ago I dropped it and since it was pretty old the plastic had gotten brittle and the outside structure that held it all together smashed into bits. I was able to keep it together, sort of, until I found something to replace it.

I wanted something other than plastic and my husband offered to build a wooden set of drawers for me. I appreciated the offer but I knew it would be awhile before he would get to it. The day before the dire warnings about Covid-19 hit I was in Home Goods and found these three drawer boxes in the Office section. The drawer height seemed right and so I bought two of them knowing I could return them if they didn't work.

When I tested them out the bobbins were just a bit too tall but I decided that I would trim about 1/8" off of the bottom of each one because I loved the look of the chests and they were so functional. That seems a little crazy since I have so much floss but really, it was about two hours of snipping while watching TV to complete it.

The inside of the drawers weren't divided so I got some balsa wood and cut dividers to go the depth of the drawer and then some smaller pieces that I placed against the front and back walls of the drawer to hold the longer pieces in place. I filled one of the chests and the other one will be divided differently for other embroidery supplies like needles, thimbles, scissors, etc.

Balsa Wood Divider

Dividers for the Rows

There are so many different ways to store embroidery floss and each one works best for the person who uses it. My grandma stored hers in a big jumble in a Wonder Bread bag! How do you store yours?

Three Drawers Organized and Filled