Even More Bookmarks

It's that time of year again -- end of school (sort of, Beadboy1 is eligible for 12 month schooling) -- which means I have to come up with small gifts for his teacher, aides, para, therapists, and social worker. That's 8 total, which is a lot. We thought of doing gift cards to Barnes and Noble, but they will have to be small. I also want to include something a little nicer, handmade by me, to thank them for everything they have done. So, probably because of the swap I'm working on, I came up with the idea of bookmarks, which have the advantage of being small, easy to make, and appropriate with the gift cards.

For this set I used the "tissue fabric" technique from Fabric Art Collage, which the leader of my Crazy Fridays "made" me buy. It was a great technique -- fast and fun. I ironed torn pieces of tissue paper onto double-sided fusible webbing, added on top another layer of webbing, fused Angelina fibers to it, painted it (which you can barely tell; next time I won't dilute the paint as much), fused the entire thing to muslin, added a band of plastic mesh to the top, and sewed the entire thing all over with variegated thread. Finally I fused felt to the back, cut the piece into bookmark sized strips, and zigzagged around the edges.

Now that I write that all out, it seems like a lot of work, but the whole thing took only three hours (not including the zigzagging, which was the only time-intensive part). I'm really pleased with the way it came out:
especially because I had never tried this layering technique before, thinking it would be too hard. I even did a pretty good job on my first attempt at zigzagging edges, if I do say so myself. Generally I can't really do anything on the sewing machine except sew a somewhat straight line. I also threw in the two decorative stitches my non-computerized machine has:
(well, only one is visible here). One sheet roughly 8.5 by 11 produced enough to make nine bookmarks (meaning I get to keep one, yay) and three little 1.5 inch squares to save for another project.
I have to do this again. Also, I highly recommend the book. It clearly explains how to do a lot of different mixed media techniques, and provides inspiration with all of the gorgeous finished projects it features.