A little bit of art….
Eli, in 4th grade, needed a quick gift for his Secret Santa pal. Paul and Eli went looking for a gift—the girl likes horses, so Eli wanted to buy her a bookmark with a horse. No luck. Apparently nothing with a horse at any store including the toy store (hard to believe, but that’s what they said). So they decided to make cookies. As in mom would make cookies. Ahem. Not. As in, I’m wrapping gifts, making my own stuff, working on dyeing six shirts with Joshua for science class, writing and printing the newsletter, doing legal stuff for mom, etc.
So I offered to make a fabric postcard instead and give it with a mini-easel. A quick Google Images search for horses turned up two that gave the silhouette that I wanted, so I traced them off the computer screen. Eli and I decided to make a field with simple trees on the side (this needed to be made FAST). Once that was done, we decided the smaller of the two horses was the correct size. Out comes the Saral transfer paper to transfer the outlines to the pre-fused cloth. The photo above is the front of the card (Eli wanted eyes and nostrils, so added them with a pen which, alas, bled a little…)
On the back, Eli did as he was instructed, wrote To Francis, From ? (and it shows the quilting):
I’m rather pleased… it took less than an hour for the whole shebang (using mostly pre-fused fabrics…good to have a little fused stash on hand for quilt emergencies just like this), way less than making a huge batch of cookies! Best of all, Eli reported that Francis was really pleased with her Secret Santa’s gift! Good for Eli for picking something he knew she would like!
December 23rd, 2007 at 5:14 pm
Lucky Secret Santa recipient !
December 23rd, 2007 at 8:25 pm
Wow – one hour! I’m impressed. My son loves horses and he would have adored this gift. I might have to try this – I haven’t made any ATCs as the thought of putting all that work into something so tiny hasn’t appealed to me, but you are convincing me!
December 24th, 2007 at 9:38 pm
[…] I related when I read Sarah Ann Smith’s blog entry, A little bit of art, as she helped her son make a fabric postcard gift for a friend. She has pictures of her card of […]
December 25th, 2007 at 8:40 pm
That’s a great postcard you and your son made together. It doesn’t take long to make but the memory will last a lifetime. Judi