Card: Rosh HaShanah: Stitched Earth

Inspiration:  With everything that's been happening since March, I felt that my Rosh HaShanah card somehow needed to reflect the feelings of disconnect, disorder, brokenness, and small pieces of hope and repair.  I settled, in my mind, on the image of Earth and thought that with all the sewing projects I've been doing lately (including masks for my family) that an Earth being stitched back together definitely fit the times.  For the greeting, I wanted to share my own hopes that the next year brings an improvement to all we are facing from COVID-19 to racial unrest to issues of health within my own family while still sharing the good I see from friends and family who are doing their part to help - organizing support for protesters, providing safe spaces to meet online, spearheading ways to give to one another - as well as the small ways even I help - more mentoring, sharing little things I make by sending mailing to cheer others up, having my daughter make encouraging art that we put up in our picture window for our neighbors to see.

How I Made Them: I started by using a template for a circle and blue card stock.  Then I used green card stock and tried to make a bit of a silhouette of the continents from a Google-searched image.  I glued these together using Modge Podge and a paint brush.  While my Earth dried, I took the wording I put together and typed it up in a Google Doc and found a font I liked and then printed (I knew I'd be making too many of this card to want to hand write all of them).  After printing, I used colored pencils to color in and give the background of my text a rainbow-feel.  I cut out the colored text and used Permanent Crafter's Tap to affix it on the front and inside of the card.  Once the Earth was dry, I cut a zig zag down it's center.  Then I took a 2-strand piece of embroidery floss in a needle and stitched it (leaving the ends hanging off).  I used Elmer's School Glue and affixed the cut and stitched Earth to the front of my card and then a glue stick to get the floss ends sticky so I press the down on the card so they weren't just flopping around.

Card Text:

Front: As we approach this Rosh HaShanah...

Inside: we pray for guidance on the path to: healing for our entire work, repairing our relationships with one another, supporting those striving to improve all our lives, love and peace in our hearts and homes. May this year be a year of positive change and blessings.

Other Ideas:

I wanted to get my daughter to help by painting large sheets of paper with blue and green that I would then cut out circles from but she was distracted by Legos and Online School work.  I also probably could have used bigger string to make it stand out more.  I also wish I wasn't making so many so I could have hand-written then greeting so instead I'll add personal messages to those I'm sending the cards to.

More Images:

After coming up with the idea, my first step was to create a sample card and refine my text.  These 1st two images are of that sample card.

The rest of these images show a bunch of Earths before cutting and the finished inside of my card.