Valentine's Heart Snow-Globe Fabric Postcards

I thought that I would share a cute little Valentine's Day project for you all.  I use my Accuquilt Go! fabric cutter for this but you could easily draw a hear template and use that instead.  These are my snow-globe fabric postcards with Valentine's confetti encased in a plastic covering.  When you shake the post-cards the confetti actually moves around!  I hope that you enjoy my little tutorial and consider sending some of these extra special cards out to your loved ones!  I was going to save this post for Valentine's Day but if you want to make a few of these to send out you'll need it ahead of time - so here it is!

First you will need a stiff product like Timtex or Stiffy for the middle of your cards.  This stabilizes the cards and it is easy to stitch through.  It's the same product that we used for the fabric bowls that were so popular a while ago.  Check your local quilt shop they will probably have it.  Some people I know have used Duck Cloth for the center but I haven't.

Cut a 6" x 4" piece of white fabric for the front and one for the back of the card.  Also, cut a 6" x 4" piece of Timtex or Stiffy for the middle of your card.

I used the small and medium hearts from my Go heart die for the cards.  The large is just too big for the 4" x 6" card.   I cut a few hearts from some heart fabrics I had in my stash.  If you want to put a fusible on the back you can do that before you run the fabrics through your die.  I used a product called Lapel Stick hat worked really well to stick the fabrics down to the back ground fabric.

Note if you would like to read my review of Lapel Stick you can see it here!

 Next I used a clear vinyl and cut a heart using the medium sized heart only.  Again, if you don't have a Go or the Heart die you can make a template and cut this out with scissors.  The vinyl I purchased in a regular fabric store in a medium weight.  the vinyl went through the die without any problems at all - I did one layer at a time since it was so slippery!

I used my Lapel Stick again to arrange the hearts on the cards in a pleasing order.

Then I got out my stock of beads and confetti!  Here is were the fun really starts since you really get to play arts and crafts.

I buy my confetti at Dollar Stores where they stock it seasonally; or, you can get it at a Party store pretty much year round.  I just love all the little hearts and cupids that you can get.  Too sweet!

First you need to put down a few beads.  You need to put a few beads in the mix or the plastic will stick to the fabric and your confetti won't move around - and you want it to move - that's the fun part ;-)  I've used a medium sized red bead and put down about 6.

 Carefully put some of your confetti on the heart.  I used different colour and sizes of hearts and cupids.  If you miss the heart use tweezers or a stiletto to put it back onto your heart.  The confetti really seems to stick to my fingers so tweezers work best for me.

Push the confetti to the center of the heart.  This is very important because you don't want that confetti falling into your sewing machine!  Don't worry it will spread out when we are finished.

Next carefully place the vinyl over the confetti and beads.  It will be puffy in the center but don't worry this will all work out!  Carefully move this over to your sewing machine.  I usually do this step right next to my sewing machine on my sewing machine cabinet.  It's just too easy to spill all of this if you do this step on a different table.

You may need to use your stiletto in this step to help keep the vinyl down.

Using a stitch like the blanket stitch on your sewing machine carefully applique everything down.  you want to make sure that some of the stitches are off the vinyl and some are on the vinyl.  A satin stitch will not work here as it will cut the vinyl and you'll have a mess on your hands.  If you don't have the blanket stitch on your sewing machine a loose zigzag would work too but just make sure that you are on and off your vinyl.  This will help seal everything in.  I used a 30 wt Sulky thread to do the applique and a 90 Topstitch needle.

 Finish up the applique around the second heart.

I wish I could show you a picture of me shaking the card LOL the confetti really moves around inside the heart.  I guess you'll just have to trust me.  But, you can see that the confetti has spread out around the heart now.

 Since I also used a red thread in the bobbin if I just fused a white piece of fabric to the back it would show the red thread right through the backing - yuck.  So, I decided to take a second piece of the Stiffy and glued it and the backing fabric to the back of the card.  Easy-peasy.

 I have a Postcard stamp I got off Ebay a few years ago and I use it to stamp the back of my postcards.  If you don't have a stamp you can draw the lines on by hand with a fine-tip Sharpie pen.  I did that for a while then invested in a stamp.

After the backing is fused on take your cards back to your sewing machine and do some type of stitching around the outside to seal all the layers together.  I love this uneven zig-zag stitch.  It really hides and inconsistencies and I think it looks amazing!

Use a Sharpie to address your cards right on the fabric and put on a stamp.  Take them to your post office to be hand canceled.

If you'd like to see my other fabric postcard tutorial you can go to my Crazy Patch Fabric Postcards post.  There you can see the clear envelopes that I use and how I add a hanger onto the cards.  I thought that it might be repetitive if you have been reading my blog for a while.

I hope that you have enjoyed my Valentine's snow-globe cards!  If you have any questions or comments please feel free to leave them here!  I absolutely love to hear from you all and I try to answer every question.  If you enjoyed this tutorial I hope that you will take a second to click FOLLOW under my picture.  That would mean a lot to me - and you can also like me on Facebook.

If you make any of these cards I would absolutely love to see a picture!

Happy Quilting all!