fresh from the Makery: felt card holder

I'm a little late posting this week's Makery project. I'll blame it on the hour we lost this past weekend. Perhaps because I'm posting late, I honestly can't really remember how I got around to making a hand sewn felt business card holder embroidered with the symbol for the zodiac sign Aquarius on the front.


I vaguely remember wanting to do something with some of the dozens of colors of embroidery floss I have on hand, material that I bought for a barely-started project from years ago. Then I came across some paper products I still have from the year I worked at this store, during my adventures in retail. I have a dozen of these very lovely, sort of framed little pieces of card stock that I've never quite been sure what to do with. So I had the idea of doing embroidery on paper. And since I had twelve of these little cards, I naturally thought about using either the 12 signs of the zodiac, images from the song "The 12 Days of Christmas," or, of course, 12 Angry Men. Projects inspired by the latter two would be great fun, but since my time was limited, I went with the simple symbols and colors associated with the zodiac.

Embroidery on paper, however, is a lot trickier than I imagined. Especially on the heavier card stock I would have been using, you have to essentially punch in all of your little holes first, and then thread your embroidery floss through. It works better with lighter paper and more geometric designs (and the end result looks a lot like drawings I remember making with a spirograph). Once again, I found myself stumped by my lack of fabric. But I remembered I had this felt gift bag from Valentine's Day. Unfortunately, I didn't have enough material to do anything with all twelve signs, so I Googled felt and embroidery for ideas. I settled on the business card holder, creating my simple design after looking at three or four very similar examples elsewhere.


I could have theoretically made two or three of these with the usable material from the re-purposed gift bag, but by the time I finally got into production mode I knew I'd be lucky to finish one. I went with Aquarius since the red and pink felt, of course, references V-Day, a holiday that's included within the date range of this particular sun sign. I also like the way the aqua thread looks against the pink and red material.


The card holder is hand-sewn because I didn't feel like dusting off my sewing machine just for this project (that and my sewing skills are a little rusty). The holder can comfortably accommodate twenty or so cards on either or both sides. I should confess that I bought fabric pinking shears to finish the edges (my paper scissors wouldn't cut through felt), which might be viewed as cheating on the self-imposed rules of this project, but as I see it, I bought a tool that I'll use over and over again, not materials for one specific project.


The only cards I had on hand were Neal's and I thought the shout-out would fit in nicely with the DIY spirit of this project, Tikatok being an online community where kids can write, share, and publish their own books. Nice, huh?

Anyway, as usual, if you like what you see, leave me a comment on this post and this business card holder may be yours, free, by the end of the week! I'm also happy to make a couple more on special request, if you leave me a comment with your sign.