The Great Big Stitched Postcard Swap 3

If you follow me on Facebook, you may have noticed recently some comments around my entry in Beth Nichols' Great Big Stitched Postcard Swap 3 from her fabulously inspirational Do What You Love website. This is the first time I've ever participated in a swap, so I'm exuding newbie excitement!

The principal is simple; the organiser sets a theme (in this case, a postcard sized piece of stitchery on the subject of love) and a date by which to have your entry finished. From the list of interested participants, they then email you the name & postal address of the person you need to send your piece to. I believe this year there were participants from 15 countries

I set to work straight away on my piece as I knew instantly that a) I wanted to incorporate text, vintage fabrics & crochet and b) I wanted to use the phrase from Beth's website,

do what you love, love what you do

For the back I decided to make it look like a traditional postcard with a real French stamp, a message to the recipient and minimal stitching - I used image transfer medium for the wording both to provide a different texture to the front & to trap the paper doily in place. I enhanced some areas with simple embroidery stitches in a variegated yarn

The front & back pieces were then joined together with my trademark crochet border and I added 3 tiny crochet hearts suspended from one corner. I love it!

I contemplated sending it directly through the post as is, but was concerned about the fragility of the dangling hearts; it would have been such a shame for it to be damaged in transit. So instead I wrapped it up in a pretty parcel as I do with all my Get Smitten™ deliveries with tags and my new Par Avion sticker. I also added in a note in one of my handmade greetings cards as well as a Get Smitten™ magnet as a special surprise gift!

When my recipient's details arrived to me from Beth - I could hardly believe it! Turns out luck of the draw had paired me up with Heather from HKPowerStudio who I had recently met online via 2 other totally unrelated sources! What a happy coincidence! It was super tempting but I managed to refrain from giving the surprise away to Heather in advance. This is the message I received on Monday morning...

Lisa, I did a great big HAPPY dance when I got my mail today. I'm glad you kept the surprise from me... we really do keep bumping into each other across the web don't we? I absolutely LOVE the stitched postcard you made, it will be hanging in my studio, I've just got to enlist my husband to invent a way to hang it so I can appreciate both sides. I love how you used the transfer material on the back side. The piece I made incorporated photo transfer and a photo I manipulated as well as some stitching. I really adore it, thank you so very much for all the love you put into the piece! Cheers, Heather

Isn't that great?! I have a feeling Heather & I will remain online friends for quite some time - maybe even meet up in-real-life one day too! You can view all the entries in the Great Big Stitched Postcard Swap on the Flickr gallery here. Entries are still coming in so keep checking back.

And yesterday, I received this little gem all the way from Jessica Swift in Atlanta, USA. She didn't provide her email address for me to be able to thank her personally, so if you read this post Jessica - thanks so much! I love that you posted it directly in the mail. I wonder what the postman made of that!

Do you know of any great swaps to take part in? I think I might be hooked!

Lisa xx