CELEBRATE AMERICA

What is more Americana than a quilt? 

And how better to celebrate the birthday of our nation than with a paper quilt made from patriotic colors?

Easy enough to duplicate just from looking at the photo, this quilt pattern can be somewhat tricky to get to look good. I'd made one a few days ago, and to my utter dismay, all of the squares were not square. I felt just devastated.

I really wanted to make this card, but I wanted my quilt squares to be actual squares, and I couldn't figure out how to remedy that situation. I thought I had been excruciatingly careful in my first attempt.

Since I was using my 1" square punch for the quilt pieces, I decided to measure out and mark lightly with a pencil nine 1" squares. And when I put my quilt pieces in place, I was careful to use the parameters of the penciled squares as guidelines. This worked wonderfully. So, if you decide to make a paper quilt like this one, I would strongly recommend taking a few minutes to carefully measure out 1" squares. Just a little "learning from experience" I could pass on to you.

Once I had the "quilt" put together, I ran the whole piece through my Big Shot inside the starry embossing folder. Thus the whole quilt had more of a patriotic feel (with the stars) as well as seeming to have a bit more quilting.

For the sentiment, I colored every other letter of a stamp from a past Paper Pumpkin kit in Real Red and Island Indigo Stampin' Write Markers, huffed on it, and stamped it out. The cute squiggles on the side were part of the stamp, and I loved the way they added just a little more of a festive feeling. I added a couple of my homemade enamel dots above the squiggles.

The flagged sentiment was laid atop some washi tape strips. The bottom blue against the white cardstock was perfect. However, when I layered the thinner strip of red dotted washi on top of the blue, it became much too obscured (dark). To remedy that situation, I added the washi to a thin strip of Whisper White cardstock to make it stand out just like the blue against the white. Perfect solution.

Once I deemed the card finished, however, it just felt like something was missing. What could it be?

This is a "quilted" card, right? What would add a more finished/realistic touch to it? Yes! Stitches! So I proceeded to draw in stitching lines with an Island Indigo Stampin' Write Marker.

OK. Now the "quilt" looked finished. But the sentiment still needed something. So I added the stitches to the edges of the sentiment piece.

And my card was finished! Yay!

A few days early, I know, but . . .

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, AMERICA!

Quilted

Smiles.