Category Embossing

ice cream card laying down

We ALL scream for ICE CREAM

CraftyK Leave a comment

The actual cross stitch on this card is probably the smallest one I have done all year. When I asked my cousin’s husband some things she likes one of his answers was ice cream. I remembered I had saved this pattern years ago from a cross stitching website that had free patterns from their magazine available. It’s so cute I knew it was just what I needed.

close up of ice cream cone

Since the stitching wasn’t going to take up a huge space on the card I wanted to add some stamping. This included a few firsts for me. I tried out a white pigmented ink. I have a purple fine glittery embossing powder that I decided to try out on the white ink. I still haven’t figured out how to keep the powder on just the ink and not loose it all from everywhere, so it looks a bit messier than I intended. I’m still trying to figure out this whole embossing thing.

focus on stamping

It was fun to watch this one as the heat gun finally started to solidify the powder. It did take a really long time and the paper warped. The card was under a big book to try and flatten it out before sending.

ice cream cone with no backstitching

I also remembered to photograph it before the backstitching. It’s amazing what some outlines can do to a pattern. You can tell what it is, but it really pops once it’s done. I almost forgot the stem, but luckily realized it before I put everything away.

front top view of ice cream card

I know I said that I did some new things, another new thing was mixing stamps. I didn’t want a bunch of white space so I went through my stamps to find something to fill in the space with. I chose the lollipop as it’s another type of sweet. In the same set I found this small confetti looking stamp. I don’t know that I used it as intended, but I tried to put it around in different areas to fill in the space. I feel that I could have done some more maybe? It’s like using a brush in Photoshop, but this can’t be undone. Once you stamp, it’s on there. Makes me scared to use it.

So this was a first in trying out layering different elements. The different ink colors, stamps from different sets, and embossing some ink. I took some hot pink construction paper to put behind the ice cream cone. The pink paper is attached with double sided tape and the cone is attached to that with foam tape. I think I might have a foam tape addiction? I’m using it on just about every card that doesn’t have a frame. I felt that the yellow paper would mean losing the pink of the ice cream, so I made the shadow thing behind it to bring back the pinks.

Stitching

Started: September 7th
Finished: September 7th

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full front of ice cream card

bottom up view

3 Sports

CraftyK Leave a comment

I’ve been investing quite a bit in new cross stitch books and even some magazines. There are so many that offer small patterns that fit well on a card. I spent the first 20ish years of cross stitching doing kits only. Now I can’t believe how much I was missing out on!

golf bag and clubs

The bowling ball was not a motif that I found, but I did take a basketball and turn it into a bowling ball. The set the golf clubs and football came from also had a basketball that I thought would work as a bowling ball instead. There was a fourth thing, but I can’t remember what it was now.

bowling

 

They were grouped into a square, for my purposes I wanted separate pieces. I redrew the patterns into WinStitch so I could separate them and change the one to a completely different sport ball. I had to really figure out where I was cutting around them to get everything placed right once I began. Luckily I cut a little extra width to the fabric just in case.

football

For the card assembly I went back and forth a lot. Search through my paper options and finally settled on a thick wallpaper. I ran it through one of my birthday embossing folders and it actually went through really smoothly.

I mounted the cross stitch squares to using foam tape. I wasn’t going to do that, but with the embossing I felt it would look better standing off even more from the front of the card. I used a yellow colored fabric, so this card is fairly yellow-tinted in real life.

Stitching

Started: July 21st
Finished: July 27th

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3 sports full front of card

top side

The PINK Flamingo is back!

CraftyK Leave a comment

It’s another multi-birthday day. My mom and a second cousin. This card is for my second cousin who loves flamingos. Not sure if it’s the color or just the love of the bird, but she’s loved them for years.

flamingo in progress

This one didn’t take too long to stitch, but my focus was a bit off and ended up with a small error in counting. It’s not really that noticeable, but the neck is a little farther over than it should be.

top half

I knew for this card that glitter glue was a must. I couldn’t find the color of paper I wanted so I went with construction paper in a hot pink (didn’t photograph so well) and some American Girl themed scrapbooking paper. I really wanted to emboss this one and then fill in areas with glue, it didn’t turn out quite as I had hoped, but it works.

bottom of flamingo

I used double sided tape for all the paper and foam tape for the cross stitch. The two papers are cut out and taped onto folded cardstock. I’ve found this works much better than trying to make paper be a card. Instead I try to assemble the card to a solid base. This also helps by making the inside and back of card white. Easy to write in and stamp the back.

Stitching

Started: July 13th
Finished: July 16th

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full front of card

top corner

Musical Owl

CraftyK Leave a comment

This card was a mostly last minute add-on to my Card Project 2019, yup I have named it and even hashtag the madness.

This card came about because my mom wanted help with a card she was going to make for my former piano teacher (not currently taking lessons) and good friend of my mom’s. She’s turning 70 this year, which happened to my mom last year. She received a mug from my aunt (her daughter in law made it) and wanted me to make one that said the same thing.

She also made a Scrabble® themed card with “seventy” on it. So I helped by using the Cricut to cut out the letters and my husband cut the pieces for her. She’s going to glue them to her card. I don’t have a picture of the Scrabble® card or anything for that part of the project. But her making a card spurred me to find a pattern that would be good for a card as well.

I went to dailycrossstitch.com first and found a pattern I liked. It’s a cute little owl with headphones and some musical notes around.

musical owl top

While my mom found some music note paper for her card, I went out and bought a music embossing folder. In the store I thought it was so cool! Well once I used it, I realized it must not have been made by someone familiar with music beyond the shapes. There’s no direction to it, the notes are going both ways, I’ll have to explain in the card that I know it’s not a legit song.

side view

I wanted the embossing to stand out, so I used a solid cardstock paper. Then I mounted the pattern using foam tape because I really like the stitching to pop off the card. Foam tape attachments are used on many commercial cards, and I enjoy it too.

 Stitching

Started: June 26th
Finished: July 2nd

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full front of card

top down view

Tweety Bird

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This card is for my brother’s wife. I was 10 when they got married and remember her love for Tweety Bird.

beginning the project

I remember my brother trying to teach me how to wrap gifts nicely (that lesson didn’t stick) and the gift he was wrapping were Tweety slippers. Those huge fluffy things where you put your foot into the “head”. It was a popular thing at the time, might still be.

top focus

 

Because of that memory (hoping she still likes Tweety) I found a small enough pattern to make for her card. I was able to stitch this on 14 count and it came to about under two inches wide and not even two inches high.

I am super proud of myself for taking photos both during the making of and before backstitching this pattern.

The small size gave me the flexibility to use one of my full page happy birthday embossing folders. I did find that this particular folder (purchased direct from China) wasn’t exactly the right size. I put the paper through, but then trimmed off the edges and then trimmed the card as well so the embossing ran side to side without a gap. Making this card just a little smaller than normal.

embossing

To cut out the yellow paper to size it for the card and cut out the hole for the stitching I used my Cricut. Had a small mishap at first where it decided to cut part of the board and paper really making it the wrong size, then tried again to get this one.

 

After that was done I ran it through my embosser to give some texture and say happy birthday. Using double sided tape I laid in the pattern so it looks like Tweety is swinging from the top of the hole. I made sure to leave a little extra space when measuring for the hole to make it almost like a window, watching someone swinging outside.

Stitching

Started: June 17th
Finished: June 21st

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full front

laying top corner

Steampunk Stitched

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Sometimes there are patterns that come through my email from Daily Cross Stitch that just scream, “This is for [enter name here]!” This pattern was one that did just that. I had a former co-worker from maybe 3 jobs or so ago that I still keep in contact with. She likes Steampunk, as do I, but she is much better at it. I’m more of a passive lover of the genre.

starting out

To get this pattern to fit on a regular sized note card I had to stitch it on Hardanger (22 count). If you remember from my Wine pattern I learned that 1 thread is much better than 2 on this cloth. I was super excited to have a cream almost antiqued Hardanger on hand, which goes perfectly with this mostly brown pattern.

side view top

For the background I knew I wanted to use my gears embossing folder I had purchased. It was just how to mount the stitching and what paper to use.

Eventually I settled on cutting out the stitching after using interfacing fabric to keep the edges from fraying. To make the card very 3D I not only embossed the back, but also used foam tape to mount the pattern.

top view embossing

The background is wallpaper. I think the colors work well with the overall feel and grunginess of this card.

front view standing

I really like how this one came together in the end. It seems like a very cohesive piece and can for sure double as art.

Stitching

Started: May 1st
Finished: May 8th

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full front

just the pattern

Cells are Blue

CraftyK Leave a comment

I’ll spoil it for you, this stitching was finished in 1 afternoon/evening! So below is not a typo. While the card was not created on the same day (finished stitching pretty late), the stitching was.

getting started

The card was a whole other story. I wasn’t sure what to do for it. The cell was something I created for a MadLibs type letter for my cousin while he was finishing up his doctorate in chemical engineering. I was taking an advanced Illustrator class at the time and thought it would be fun to create my own graphics for the letters. Below is the cards original inspiration.

blue "cell"

Coming up with his card cross stitch was the easy part. Now it was the hard part of assembly. Since this is a cell I wanted to put it in a circle (Petri dish) that’s about as far as the planning went.

I spent a couple of days after the stitching was done thinking over how to tackle the next part. I decided to start with the paper, what color I wanted to use. I found a blue that looked kind of watery I guess, it felt like it could work.

 

 

Next I went to my embossing folders to see what would work for this project. I was originally going to do dots, then found overlapping circles and felt that worked better.

 

top side view of card

Once I had the paper out I got out my handy Cricut for cutting the circle. My husband found a compass for me to try and get the size correct. The last circle I did was way too small. I had the opposite problem with this one and cut two frames with the second being slightly smaller. After the one I was going to use was cut out I ran it through the embossing machine.

As another inside joke of sorts I turned the scrap pieces including the inner circle that was cut out (twice) into confetti. I have a round punch thing that makes sort of big circles, so it’s not annoying confetti, but still something in the card. This is something my cousins’ now wife loved to do to him while dating. I even heard she sent an envelope with just glitter or confetti. I also included a little print out of the original cell as an additional keepsake.

Stitching

Started: February 21st
Finished: February 21st

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the full card

the cross stitch

Yellow Bird

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This little bird is tiny and somehow there are 13 different colors! I couldn’t believe it as I was collecting the thread/floss for this project. I must admit it looks pretty lifelike now that it’s done, so all those color changes were worth it.

the beginning

This card is for my aunt whose birthday is today. I’m not sure on her age and feel it’s not appropriate to share anyway. She loves to photograph the birds that come to her backyard to eat and if they found a home in a birdhouse, sleep over. I am pretty sure I have seen some sort of black and yellow bird in her photos and this one made me think of her.

As you can see below this pattern came together extremely quickly, which is good because I was very much behind (and still am) on getting these done in a timely manner.

Because of the size I decided before I began this one would not be “framed” as I have done to many of the other patterns. I wanted to use my embossing machine again. I have a folder (I think that’s what those are called) with happy birthday all over it that I wanted to use. It’s similar to the Purple Morpho from last year.

 

Instead of using scrapbook paper I went with wallpaper. I did two colors and discovered that the softer less “papery” wallpaper does not emboss. I wasn’t sure how it would go and I was happy with either as the background, the silver won.

For mounting I used a small piece of grey paper foam tape mounted to the card then used some double sided tape and E-6000 for attaching the fabric to the paper.

Something I learned while studying for my CPP exam was that if you want to show texture, light from the side. So this go-round of highlighting the embossing on a card I was able to show better what it looks like.

the embossing

Stitching

Started: January 28th
Finished: January 29th

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cropped in full card view

Purple Morpho

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Today’s my cousin Rhonda’s birthday! Her nonprofit logo is a purple butterfly, so I took the pattern of a Blue Morpho and turned it into a Purple Morpho.blue morpho with opened wings

About the card

cloth, thread, pattern

After working on so many cross stitches that take weeks if not months (and a few a while back pretty sure years…) these last couple of cards have been a wonderful “break”. The base design I used for this butterfly was from Donna Kooler’s Cross Stitch Designs book. I recreated it in WinStitch so I could mark off what I finished, and change the butterfly from blue to purple.

While I was at Joann’s a few weeks ago I found thread that looked to be sparkly thread. Once I cut it and definitely once I started using it, I’m pretty sure it’s filament. Of course that didn’t stop me from using it like thread the way I wanted to and add some sparkle to my butterfly.

close up of stitching

Like the Care Bear I thought I was finished and I got so excited I almost forgot to finish the back stitching on this one! I finished all the wing details and completely spaced the outside. I woke up the next morning and it hit me that I wasn’t actually done.

Once I finished the back stitching for real I began collecting all the pieces to put together the card. While I was working on the cross stitch I decided I wanted to used one of my new birthday embossing folders. I pulled out my paper drawer and thought I was going for one foil embossed paper I have and instead ran across the butterfly paper (still foil embossed).

detail shot of the embossing

Although the colors match nothing in the cross stitch I loved the butterfly theme. I used that as the background and embossed it using the happy birthday folder I have. It’s fairly hard to see and photograph, but you can feel it.

To help the cross stitch stand out more I chose a neutral color to mount using foam tape to the card. The cross stitch is attached with some double sided tape in the middle and E-6000 on the edges. That stuff is powerful and the butterfly won’t be going anywhere.

side view of card

So there you have it! That’s how this card came together in just a few days.

 

Stitching

Started: October 22nd
Finished: October 25th

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