There shall be / Eternal summer in the grateful heart. - Celia Thaxter
Recently we visited the old neighborhood and our friends across the way to celebrate a birthday. I don't miss my house as much as theirs. Probably because it's still the same in many ways, memories waiting there on tabletops and walls as if I just ran home for a cup of sugar. Handmade gifts, photos and favorite toys long outgrown are now cherished relics of what's past. This time of year is especially rich with that nostalgia- the greenest days in the back yard when our children were toddlers pretending in the playhouses (theirs and ours), the evenings on the back porch while they ran around in the darkness and then made pillow beds on the floor. Candlelight. Music. Laughter and friends.
After dinner and a few glasses of wine, I wandered around the house with my camera and took snapshots of those favorite vignettes- in the candlelight. No wonder that the combination effect made them look all blurry. A little disappointed when I uploaded them. But, aha, the magic of photo-editing. I used an edit effects command which tweaked the color and pumped the image with contrast. And suddenly they looked so beautiful. Soft and dreamy like those sleepy babies- now grown, briefly joining us on the porch.
A lot to admire in these images, and it's their house after all, so I assembled this accordion thank you card to send. A sheet of 12 x 12 cardstock cut into 3 strips, accordion folded to four 3" panels and those attached at the ends with zigzag stitching.
Printed the 12 images, trimmed and attached one to each panel. The toile envelope came about as a way to manage the thick accordion fold.
It is just a length of fabric, torn to size, folded back onto itself and stitched along the 2 sides. Then add a button and string to wrap the fold shut onto the button like a document case.
Someday I'll go back for a visit and it will be sitting there, on a tabletop, waiting for me to pick it up again. Which I will- with a happy sigh and a grateful heart. xoC
