Several years ago, I was invited to join a postcard exchange. To my good fortune, the group was the original art2mail exchange group and I have been blessed to be a part of this group for 3 years. This is a fascinating group of women from the around the world. I’ve met most of them “online” through our discussion group, and had the pleasure to meet several members in person at various quilt shows and markets.

It’s always a challenge to figure out what to do for my postcards and I have used this exchange do try something that is not related to paintstiks. This year, I decided to pull out the felting machine and see how it works. While rummaging through my closet (which I will NOT be posting photos of…) I rescued a rather large bag of glorious silk fibers, wool roving, incredible yarns, and all manner of lovely stuff that I have not been able to resist taking home with me over the past 10 years. I also ran across a box of vintage eyelets I had tucked away, so those went into the pile as well.

After just playing with the machine for a bit, I settled on a simple design. (If you are going to make 30 postcards, keep it simple!) It was fun to choose the eyelet colors and find a pattern that complimented each card. For the backing, I found a little deck of self-adhesive card stock from the scrap booking section of a local craft store. I love it when I can peel and stick something to get it done quickly! The adhesive gummed up my needle as I stitched around the cards, but a little bit of solvent cleaned that right up.

I put a little bits of silk roving under the eyelets to add a little extra color and hide the white on the back of the card stock.

Now, I just have to stick on the stamps and got those cards in the mail! At least I know that I’m not the only member of the group sending out my 2007 exchange cards several months into 2008

I just got a few lovely photos from Mary Brandt, my trusy trade-show companion and special projects go-to gal. Mary loves to play with the paintstiks and try out new things, especially when she has a new pattern to work with. Mary got a copy of the Sassy Bag pattern from Lazy Girl Designs and just could not wait to put one together. Visit the Lazy Girl Designs website for more information and to see a video on the Sassy Bag.

Mary used our paintstiks to create the irregular stripes on the turquoise fabric for the bag flap. The light fabric on the bottom of the bag is a batik from her stash. This is a truly quick and easy technique that you will want to try for yourself, so here’s how it works:

1. Choose a relatively plain piece of fabric from your stash. Press to remove any wrinkles.
2. Tape your fabric to a work surface, or use a Grip-n-Grip mat under your fabric to keep it from moving around while you work.
3. Tear a piece of paper to create an uneven edge.
4. Lay the paper on your fabric, leaving about an inch of fabric exposed.
5. Apply paintstik color to a palette surface and load the paint onto a stiff brush.
6. Brush the color off the edge of the paper and onto the fabric.
7. Move the paper over about an inch, and continue to add stripes until you have enough painted fabric for your project.
8. Heat set your paint and get started!

OK. the official instructions are to let the paint dry and then heat set before moving on with a project, but there really is not much paint on your fabric when you make these soft stripes, so here is the “heat in a hurry” tip — Just put your fabric between 2 pieces of parchment paper (look in your kitchen for baking parchment) and press for 10-15 seconds over each part of the fabric. The paint will be dry enough to continue working without getting paint on your hands or sewing machine.

Mary tells me the Sassy Bag goes together very quickly. I may have to try one out myself. She was having so much fun that she painted another piece of fabric for a checkbook cover, and then finished off the set with a Wonder Wallet. That seems like way too much for one day.

Happy painting!