Isn't this gingerbread man stamp from Holiday Button Bits sweet? I remember my Papa Vickery reading the story of The Gingerbread Man to me many times when I was a little girl--"Run, run, run, as fast as you can! You can't catch me: I'm the gingerbread man!" How I laughed as he outran all of his pursuers, but I got really nervous when he climbed on the back of that old fox to cross the river.
Obviously, this image was another nostalgic one. I thought I'd stamp him on unbleached muslin cloth rather than paper, and pair him with kraft cardstock and red polka dots (Polka Dot Basics II). You can't see it very well here, but the muslin is padded with a thin layer of quilt batting to make him soft and touchable. A drop of oil of cinnamon on the button threads could make him smell just as nostalgic as he looks. (I'd put it on the button threads to keep from getting an oily spot on either the cardstock or cloth.)
Here's what I did: first I stamped the gingerbread man on a scrap of unbleached muslin using Gingerbread Versamagic ink, with a bit of Jumbo Java Versamagic added to his extremities where he would be most likely to brown a bit more. I then used a PaperTrey Chamomile Distress cube to age the edges of the cloth. I stitched around the image three times with a random pattern--basically square, but a bit wavy. That is because I am planning to fray the edges, and I wanted a natural place for the fraying to end. The sentiment is stamped in PaperTrey Pure Poppy ink.
Here I have frayed the edges right up to the stitching. I also iron him to heat set the image and make sure the ink was absolutely dry. It still wouldn't withstand washing, but it certainly wouldn't budge under normal conditions.
Here I have sewn his buttons on; he's ready for padding.
Next, I flipped the image over, added a layer of 1/8" ScorTape on the outer edges just inside the frayed part, and cut a very thin layer of quilt batting that would fit just inside the tape perimeter.
Here I have placed him on a sheet of Pure Poppy cardstock after taking the liner off of the ScorTape. I had planned to leave a bit of the Pure Poppy mat layer showing, but it didn't look quite like I wanted it to. I ended up using my paper trimmer (a Tonic) to trim both red mat and frayed threads. He's not quite as random looking along the edges as I had first envisioned, but he looks better this way than he did before the haircut. ;-)#
This is a different view of my finished card front; you can see the padding better in natural sunlight than in my light tent. It took a little longer than a normal card, but when you consider that it could have a string attached and double as a tree ornament, it's perhaps worth the time.
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