How to Make Fabric Postage Stamps

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We recently moved into a new house, and unexpectedly we’ve received a few house warming gifts. We have some dear friends that live three hours from us, and their adorable family has two sets of twin girls. They’re grade school age girls, and in their kindness, these girls and their mom made a homemade house warming gift for us. They took pages from old books and coiled them into small twirly flowers. After slowly making a couple hundred flowers, they attached them to a foam circle, and finished a homemade wreath for us.

Needless to say, receiving gifts like this in the mail are the ones that leave my speechless. Such kindness and thoughtfulness.

Even though nothing is necessary, I wanted to send each of these grade school girls a thank you note and a small treat of sorts.

Something small. Something quick and whimsy. Something just to make them smile. I’ve seen fabric postage stamps for years, but I had no reason to take the time to make them until now. They’re fun and quick and simple.

Plus, they fit easily into an envelope with a thank you card.

Supplies:

Fabric scraps for fussy cutting
Back ground fabric
Scraps of interfacing
Sewing machine
Pinking shears

(Heather Ross prints are the best prints for fussy cutting…in my opinion.)

Here’s how I made some simple fabric postage stamps:

1. Gather some fabric scraps. Find some solids for backgrounds and some fabrics for fussy cutting.

2. Cut small squares around the strawberries or flowers or cats or acorns or text on the fabrics.

I started by cutting them all the same size but eventually morphed to cutting ones of all sizes. I liked the randomness of them all.

3. Sew a small square of interfacing onto the backs of the fussy cut fabrics. This added just enough stability to the stamps to give them some additional weight. It was a small change that made a big difference for me.

The interfacing gave stiffness to the fabric that seemed necessary because of sewing with such small pieces. When sewing with something so small, my needle sometimes didn’t puncture cleanly into the fabrics. Then back stitching, the fabric would get a bit garbled too.

All that to say, the interfacing was necessary for me.

4. Sew the fussy cut fabric onto a back ground fabric. I had previously cut a large stack of 2 inch by 2 inch squares long ago. These were the perfect size for back ground fabrics.

5. Trim the edges with pinking shears. I just purchased mine last week, and they’re a fun addition to my sewing drawer.

The sewing projects I choose are usually long winded and slow. Not only were these a great way to use up small scraps, they’re fun and fast to finish!