Paint & stitch robot

I do hope you like my paint & stitch cards, because I’ve made a few of them now. I enjoy the process and it’s nice to not have to think about every aspect of a card’s design when someone’s birthday comes around. My current plan is to keep to this basic idea (with variations) until everyone on my list has received one of them. I’ve trimmed the list of people I make cards for over recent years, so now it’s pretty much just people who appreciate what I do. Which is just as well because this is not a quick process.

I haven’t timed it, but when you take everything into account — finding and editing or creating a design, transferring it, painting it, stitching it, and finally turning it into a card — several hours of work go into each one. Anyone who tries to tell me that I “could sell these” will leave understanding exactly why I couldn’t.

Luckily, I like making them and it’s fun to try and find small ways to tweak the process or the embellishment. With this robot, I mainly concentrated on practising my painting technique. I was also still working out the best way to put the card together at this point.

Sometimes I think that I worry too much about sending handmade cards in the post, after all, as far as I know, every one I’ve sent has made it to its destination. And then I posted this card to Ireland. I posted it in plenty of time to get there. If, of course, the sorting office hadn’t managed to ignore the big address on the side of the envelope with the stamp on and, instead, delivered it to the small return address on the back of the envelope. Yes, it dropped through our letterbox a couple of days after posting it. I covered up the return address and stuck it back in the postbox. This time it made it to Ireland, but the poor little robot got folded in half somewhere along the way. I may have to invest in some card-backed envelopes for particularly precious cards. Do you take any special precautions when sending handmade cards?

If you are interested in learning more about the work that goes into creating these cards take a look at my write-up of the paint & stitch card process.