Valentine

Years ago my younger sister and I started exchanging a homemade valentine each year. Many times the valentine would get mailed after Feb. 14th but this year she will get it on the right day. Since my surgery I have had unrealistic ideas of what I can get finished in a day.....I totally thought I'd get a zipper pouch made for each of my valentine people this year; did not happen but I came up with a compromise.Color copy the 1 valentine I made and make cards out of it and mail the cards.I thought I was being clever when I stenciled the glue in a heart shape to apply the glitter. It did not cover well. It worked much better to cut the heart shape out, apply the glue and glitter let it dry, then attach the shape to the card. like this. (I like the way the glitter looks in this out of focus picture.)

My inspiration was last years valentine. I loved the way they turned out and tried to come up with a fabric version without buying any fabric... Since the zipper was pink - I had no red zipper - I used a pink fabric for the lining and the loose heart. The background is from a linen jumper I bought at a thrift store last year for $.99.
Method:

• I cut hearts out of a piece of freezer paper,
• ironed the freezer paper with the holes in it down and
  
• stenciled some white fabric paint into the holes. When that was dry
• I used a rubber stamp and staz-on brown ink to 'write' on the hearts. Added batting, then
  
• quilted around the hearts
• ironed a scrap of pink fabric back to back with wonder under,
• cut out a pink heart,
• sewed it down the middle. Instead of backstitching I pulled the threads to the back side,
  
• knotted them and fray-checked them.
  
• then made it into a zipper pouch like this. Only I was unable to move my needle on my sewing machine, so could not use the zipper foot. That was a little tricky.
  

zipper status: I've made 16 zipper pouches and now am down to 58 zippers.