Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Happy Tuesday! :) My mother-in-law's birthday is today (Happy Birthday Katie!) and I wanted to send her a fun and unique card. So I thought about making a ribbon card, but decided I wanted to somehow incorporate a few bright and beautiful fabrics that she loves. I had heard of fabric postcards being done before, so I surfed around a bunch of different sites about fabric postcards. I found many different ways to do it, as well as different specifications and such that is required by the USPS. I put a bunch of different suggestions and thoughts together and came up with this way to make a fabric postcard. Yay!

Regulations and tips with sending a fabric postcard via USPS (found on a bunch of different sites):
+ Postcard must be 4" x 6" and no thicker than 1/8" *EDITED: Postcards can also be 5" x 7" - which means more room to write :) Thanks Elisa!!
+ It is probably a good idea to pay a little extra to have your postcard hand-canceled instead of risking it getting stuck in the machine that cancels them
+ A regular stamp will stick just fine in the corner, no glue or extra adhesive necessary
+ Put "POSTCARD" on the back at the top, to clarify, I guess :)
+ You can place the postcard in a clear envelope if you have embellishments that may fall off during transit (I have not tried this)

Supplies:
+ 2 pieces of heavyweight fusible interfacing - each 4" x 6"
+ 1 piece of white cotton fabric (I used heavy cotton quilting fabric) - 4.25" x 6.25" - I made the front and back pieces a little bigger to be able to trim down rough edges once the postcard was near finished
+ Fabric for the front of your postcard - I made a patchwork front! 4.25" x 6.25"
+ Iron-on transfer paper with your postcard back (message) printed onto it
- When making the back of the postcard on your computer document, be sure to make your document size 4"x6" and also be sure to set up your message on the left side and the address on the right side. I also put my return address in the upper left corner and put "POSTCARD" across the top.
- I left about 1/4" around the edges of the postcard back to be able to sew around the postcard at the end
- Make sure you print it mirror image so it will transfer correctly!
+ Or you can use a fabric pen to write your message (I wrote on one of my other postcards - see the pink patchwork postcard below)
+ Rotary cutter & mat or scissors
+ Ruler
+ 2 sewing pins
+ Sewing machine & thread

Following the directions included in the iron-on sheets package, iron the postcard back transfer onto the white piece of fabric. Be sure that it is positioned correctly and that text is not falling off the edge (I almost did that, oops). Probably also a good idea to trim around your text area (I didn't do that so I could reuse the rest of the sheet later on), so you don't iron on extra transfer material stuff (which I did, oops).

It will now look something like this:

Next, iron one sheet of the heavyweight fusible interfacing to the back of the postcard front.

It will look something like this:

Now, iron on the other piece of heavyweight fusible interfacing to the back of the postcard back. I used a scrap piece of material to cover it while ironing to be sure I wouldn't mess up the transfer I had just ironed on.

The back of the postcard is under the polka dot fabric. :)

If you also printed out a message to go on the front, go ahead and stitch that to the front (you can also do this before ironing the interfacing on).

Now you have two pieces like this:

Pin the two pieces together with right sides facing out.

Trim off excess.

Now you're almost finished! Stitch around the edges to finish. You can use a zigzag stitch or a decorative stitch. I used a straight stitch and went around the postcard 3 times to add a decorative feel.