Fun Thank You for a Quilt!

Aloha, all!

     Are there any last minute products you need from the Stampin' Up! 2012 Holiday Catalog?  If so, now's the time to order them – especially the papers.  There was just a fantastic bunch of Designer Series Papers in that catalog, and I doubt we'll be seeing them again.  I just went through the catalog (probably not for the last time), and I'd be hard put to tell you which of the sets of papers I'm going to miss the most.  But if I had to, I'd say that the Festival of Prints Designer Series Paper Stack is the one.  I have plenty of the other papers left, too.  But this is the set I used in my Christmas Card newsletter throughout the summer a lot, and I continue to use it up until it's no longer current Stampin' Up! product.

     Do you recognize these sheets from the set?  They're the same sheets I used in my herringbone cards in my last blog post.  I cut my 1/4" and 1/2" strips for the herringbone just until I had enough left to punch each sheet with the 1-1/4" Square Punch.  This design is also from the same issue of Card Maker magazine that had the herringbone pattern.  And how simple it is!  Just punch seven 1-1/4" squares and put them in a row where each is turned this way or that – no rules or pattern – until you like what you see.

     Once I had my squares lined up to fit on the 5-1/4" high x 4" wide sheet of Very Vanilla Card Stock, I took another piece of card stock and laid it on top of the piece with the squares.  Then I carefully turned it over, picked up what was now the top piece of card stock, and ran a piece of transparent tape down what was now the reverse of the designs I was going to use.  Once that was done, I turned the line of squares over and added some SNAIL Adhesive to the back side of squares that overlapped another.  Finally, I ran SNAIL all the way down the back of the line of squares and placed it on the Very Vanilla layer.

     If you'd like to be smarter than I was when making this card, you might stamp the sentiment (from the stamp set, Sassy Salutations) BEFORE you lay the line of squares down.  Then you'd be sure to have enough space for the stamp.  I lucked out and had room to stamp after the squares were adhered to the card stock.  But for sure I needed my Stamp-a-ma-jig to make that work!

      And now the story of the Thank You note.

     This thank you was to a friend who had made a luscious Christmas quilt and donated it to one of the groups to which I belong so they could raffle it as a fund-raiser.  I just loved the quilt, but the tickets were a bit pricey.  Nonetheless, I bought two.  When the winning number was called, it was not one of mine.  From behind me came a voice saying, "That's my number!"  It was my husband!!!!  I had no idea he had bought a ticket, bless his little heart!

     While he assured me that the quilt was for me, I have to tell you that there is someone else in our household who took possession of it as soon as I carefully draped it on our living room sofa.

     I had told Marilyn (the quilter) that this would happen if I draped it on a piece of furniture.  She said not to worry as her cat had helped her make the quilt as she sat in the evening watching television and quilting away.  So Cholla, the Messenheimer cat, is keeping up the tradition!

     Marilyn's Thank You note is in the mail – and Cholla is going to be so disappointed this coming week when I clean the quilt (of cat hair, for sure) and stash it away until next Christmas!