My Swap For All Seasons Project

In January I signed up to do an exchange arranged by Linda on A Swap For All Seasons blog. Our assignment was to create a 5" X 7" fabric collage. Just a small, simple, sweet swap. And we had till Feb. 16 to get it done and in the mail.

Well, being the procrastinator that I am, I began working on it around Feb. 14! LOL! I had this idea in my head but wasn't really sure what the completed project was going to look like. I started digging around in my fabric stash, lace stash, trimming stash---you name it!

But before anything could proceed, I had to undo some re-arranging I'd done at Christmas time to make room for all my Christmas decorations. I'd hidden my sewing machine in the closet so I could use the table it resides on. I'd moved my monster Christmas cactus there, so I tenderly moved it back to the table it usually lives on. It's got several buds on it and all you have to do is rustle the air around it to cause it to abort all it's buds!! It's one finicky plant! But I managed to get it moved and there are still buds clinging to life, so hopefully they'll survive!

So now that excuse--no sewing machine--is no longer valid and I have to get started on this project!

I've had a cute remnant for quite a while, with sweet little fairies & flowers, that I wanted to use somehow in this project. And someplace I'd seen a sweet collage with "curtains" on the sides. So, with that idea in mind, I dug in and this is the finished creation:
I ironed stiff interfacing to the back of the fairie and trimmed out around her. I had a piece of pink/peach chenille that I used for the background and cut some white satin for the "curtains".

Some lace at the top, some lace at the bottom & some rick-rack top and bottom. I cut one of the butterflies from the fairie fabric, stiffened it the same as the fairy and cut out. It's attached at the lower right corner. I had some crumpled silk ribbon that I used behind a pretty paper flower from my scrapbooking stash, in the upper left corner, along with a length of ribbon with the word "celebrate" on it. Then I made a rosette out of some white trim and put a pink pom-pom in the center of it, for the lower left.

Now that I'm reviewing the swap blog, I'm thinking I might have given this a little too much of a finished appearance. I guess I just can't help myself---sorry Deb!

I wanted to provide some way for Deb, my partner, to hang this concoction, so I fashioned my own hanger from some wire I had on hand. It really should have been a heavier weight of wire because it's a little flimsy, but that's what I had, and time was winding down!

I enjoyed this project and sure hope my partner does, too. I actually got it mailed one day early!