Bubble Gum Shaker Postcard

started this a while ago, but couldn't get it finished, so we'll try again...  wanted to share with you my bubble gum shaker postcard that I did for one of my exchanges.  The theme was "Shakers" and to begin with all I could think about was the religious group known for its furniture and I had no clue how I was going to do a postcard along those lines... finally I learned that it is a card that in some way has something that shakes in it... and immediately the thought of a bubble gum dispenser came to mind...

bubble gum dispensers probably hold fun memories for all of us, who hasn't begged their parent for money (be it $.01 or $.25 depending on how old you are) in order to be able to insert the money and turn the little dial... so the question became, how in the world do I actually create a post card the would look like the picture?  daunting task, but hey, sometimes I jump in the deep end without a second thought... actually probably do that way too often and ought to look more closely before I do it sometimes.

so I started with my regular card, only I went ahead and put muslin on the front also as a background... I sort of would have liked to have done some brown to look like a countertop and then a higher background of some sort, but I just couldn't figure that one out well enough to make it happen.  then I cut out a circle out of peltex and cut the center out of it so it looked (for lack of a better description) like a very skinny doughnut... basically, this "doughnut" was to hold down the cellophane that became my container.  I thought about using some type of sheer fabric, but I really wanted the glass look.  I carefully inserted some different colored small beads as the gumballs into the cellophane while keeping the cellophane under the peltex (sort of like herding cats, it was) and then had to sew it all down... very, very amusing... I only stitched the outside of the round since I was worried that if I stitched the inside also, it would weaken the cellophane and cause it to tear apart and spill the gumballs, so I ran a bead of fabric paint along the inside edge of the round to just sort of seal it up and try to make it look pretty... stitching would have looked nicer, but...  then came the base and the top, put some peltex under the base also so that it would sit at the same level as the edge of the round top and then stitched it into place. 

once all that was done, I got my black and silver fabric paint, and painted on the base details of the dial and the dispenser... if I had an embroidery machine, I would have done it that way in a second, but not gonna go buy one of those just for something like this... but in a few years, it might go on my wish list.  once the paint was dry I added a couple of more gumballs on the base so that it would look like they had just been dispensed, then edged it in white (sort of boring, but didn't want to have to ditch the project at this point if I screwed it up).

not near as good as the original picture, not near as good as the thought in my head... but considering this was the very first thing like this I had ever done, I was pretty proud of myself... and so far, the ones who have gotten them have really loved them.  so I would definitely do it again, in a heartbeat.