Tag birthday

bottom up view of Americana Eagle

Americana

CraftyK Leave a comment

The first of the December cards. Also one of the last 3 cards for 2019. As of right now I don’t have any intention of doing any more birthday cards for 2020 and beyond.

This card is going to the stepson of a friend of mine. Her children received the Precious Moments patterns for L and H. Since they were animals it was cute and made sense. For A and J it was angel and jogger, so I decided to ask her what the kids were into so I could come up with something else for them. For the little girl was a mermaid and for the older boy he likes Americana.

I searched my books and magazines that I have been collecting over the last year and found this pattern in once of those motif books. I redrew it in the WinStitch program so I could make the pattern bigger and color on it. This pattern does have some extensive backstitching for how small it is.

eagle before backstitching

I made sure to wait on the backstitching so I could have a before/after photo of this one.

front angle view of eagle

Assembly was pretty straightforward. I found a piece of wallpaper that would look good and let the eagle really stand out. I ironed on interfacing fabric to the pattern so I could cut around it with less fraying. Then I attached the wallpaper to the cardstock with double sided tape. The motif is attached with foam tape.

Stitching

Started: November 2nd
Finished: November 5th

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full front view of "Americana"

another fisherman laying down photo

Gone Fishing

CraftyK Leave a comment

The second birthday today. And this time it is for twins. This card is for the twin of the uncle who received the golfer card (sorry it’s not linked because the post isn’t live yet).

My husband and I took a quick trip to Texas while I was stitching this one. I didn’t have much time to work on it while we were away, and with a cancelled flight, well it put things a bit behind.

fisherman before backstitching

I did manage to take a picture of this one before I started any backstitching. Most of the way through I really debated whether I should backstitch as I went. Obviously you now know the answer to that one.

just the fisherman stitching

This pattern does have quite a bit of detail to it. The hardest was making the plaid shirt. I had to go back and add some lines that I had previously missed, but I think I got it all in the end.

laying down fisherman

I used the Cricut to create the frame for this card. I have a thicker blue paper with texture to it that I really liked. I felt that the browns and greens were a bit overpowering so I wanted to show more “water” and added the blue paper frame to create that effect.

Stitching

Started: August 28th
Finished: September 2nd

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full front of fisherman card

golfer card laying down

Tee Time

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Oh my goodness the cards are coming fast now! This one took the span of two days because of how late it was started the first day. I am now running the cross stitching part one after the other. Prepping 3 at a time to work on consecutively to get them all done. This one marks 16 to the end of the #cardproject2019.

golfer stitched

This one may look simple, but the color changes and 3/4 stitching throughout made it a little more challenging. My uncle has always loved golf as far as I know and has really enjoyed it since retiring.

I used to stay with my cousin for a week in the summer and my uncle tried to teach me how to golf. I was no good and still am not, I don’t blame his teaching, it’s just not something I find enjoyable. I’m pretty sure he’s actually good at it.

I used my new friend interfacing fabric to make this one a cut out. I felt as a golfer in motion it should stand off the card. I also had this green paper that is white on the other side so it made a great ready to go card.

have a wonderful birthday stamp

The bottom I used scrapbooking paper and a birthday stamp I have. I used brown ink and clear embossing powder to give more dimension and shine to it. The embossing worked really well on this. I even came up with the novel idea to use scissor to hold the paper down while using the heat gun so I wouldn’t burn my fingers. I used the Cricut to cut out the small piece of paper.

Stitching

Started: August 26th
Finished: August 27th

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front of golfer 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

Happy Birthday text in focus

Teddy bear

CraftyK Leave a comment

Birthday twins in the family are becoming more common. Not just the actual twins, nope, these are the new people marrying in and having babies. There’s just under 60 people in the family and there are 365 days a year. We have at least 5 overlapping birthdays already of non-twins. That just seems so crazy to me!

Anyway, this card didn’t take too terribly long to stitch. I actually outlined the letters as I went since I wanted the thin parts to be thicker, so two threads across the board on that one.

The bear I wanted to show a before/after of the stitching vs stitching with backstitching .

teddy in progress

Here’s my wonderful cell phone photo of the bear before I got out the black thread for it. It’s always fun to see the before and after on these and the difference it makes.

side angle right

The assembly of the card didn’t go as I’d hoped. It was a bit like the Hippo I made earlier this year. The paper is the thinner I guess regular printer paper weight and doesn’t handle being cut and taped down over the fabric very well.

It seems to go ok until the bottom and I get a bubble that turns into a pronounced crease. Other than that I like how this card turned out.

Stitching

Started: July 16th
Finished: July 20th

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teddy card full front

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

cat face

Happy Kitty

CraftyK Leave a comment

Hopefully you like cats. I do. I have 2 of them. My cousins have several cats among them as well. The cousin who is getting this card however had to give up his cats after finding out one of his kids is allergic. Yet the whole family still loves cats. They are all getting a cat card to at least have a non-allergy causing cat around. I cannot guarantee the card is free of cat hair either. I usually have one on my lap while attempting at stitching.

happy cat thread

This pattern is part of a set from a quilt book. I tried to highlight the symbols and colors I would need, yet missed the pink. It’s not in the picture when I started, but I had to go find some pink for the ears by time I was done.

stitching top

This was a pretty fast pattern to work on. It was the designing of the card that took a while.

I had no idea where to begin. I went through both paper drawers a couple of times before finding the blue geometric patterned paper from a book I bought last year.

The pattern was small enough to add some stamping with a birthday message. That paper was easy to find, I find myself using it a lot. It’s not white and has some character to it.

bottom view

I used my Cricut to cut out the blue paper and ivory paper for stamping on. I have a corner rounder cutting thing I used to round the corners. I was lazy and didn’t design the box in Illustrator and the Cricut program doesn’t allow for rounded corners.

After stamping I decided since I had my clear embossing powder by me to emboss just the word birthday. A little got on the letters above, but not enough to change the effect I was going for.

front of card standing

For not having a clue how to start designing this card I think it came together really well. Bringing in the additional element of the stamp helps offset the smaller cross stitch design.

Stitching

Started: May 9th
Finished: May 11th

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front of Happy Cat

laying top corner

Steampunk Stitched

CraftyK Leave a comment

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

the otter stitching

Otter Love

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The newest addition to the family by marriage loves otters…and Harry Potter. While Harry Potter is great, a little harder to come by cross stitch patterns. And for some reason I remember her otter love before HP.

I went searching for an otter pattern on Etsy and ended up with one from dailycrossstitch.com that is pretty adorable.

the pieces

There are lots of browns in this pattern, with pops of color with the pink and blue. It’s a very easy pattern to work which is good when you need to move through them quickly.

standing front view

This card ended up using a few new things I have learned about over the past year. First is the super new interfacing fabric that I think I mention every post now. The next is embossing powder for stamping.

The fun curves of this pattern lent itself to being one that is cut out and mounted. Since it doesn’t take up the full space I also decided to pull out some stamps. Then I read that the ink was the kind you can emboss with…and found I had bought powder called “Tinsel”. Knowing that Iris has mailed just glitter in an envelope before I couldn’t help but add some to the card.

close up of stamping

I haven’t figured out how to “clean up” the powder before running the heat gun over it making everything permanent. So this attempt looks messy to me along with some areas being heavier on the glitter than others. Overall it’s a cute card that came together nicely.

Stitching

Started: April 21st
Finished: April 29th

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front only

side view of card

Birthday Giraffe

CraftyK Leave a comment

When I asked my cousin’s wife what were some things he likes (I did prompt with animals) she came back with giraffe. I don’t think this is a typical animal that people love, but it is fitting as he is well over 6 feet tall.

parts for giraffe

I immediately thought of looking through my Precious Moments books for a giraffe pattern and found this one. For some reason I think of Precious Moments when I think of this cousin. No idea why. Still after drawing the pattern, working on the pattern, nothing comes to mind that screams we have some event together that would make me think of them.

standing card

I used my WinStitch program to recreate the giraffe and added Happy Birthday text using a built in font. After starting I realized I had placed the text way too far from the giraffe. Luckily the file was saved and I was able to move it over and reprint the pattern. I’m not good at winging it, otherwise I would have tried to remember how far over I wanted to move everything.

To finish this one off I used the interfacing fabric again to stabilize it. Then gave myself a little more breathing room while measuring the cutout for the frame. I cut the green paper using the Cricut. Then double sided tape to hold it all together.

top corner

I use double sided tape twice for these, once around the frame and line up the stitching in it, getting it as straight as I can. It is movable which is nice. Then I put tape around the edges of the cardstock. I carefully place the frame with the fabric adhered to it onto the cardstock base and keep it as smooth as possible to prevent wrinkles and bubbles. I was impressed this one laid out very nicely.

I did some trimming at the end to remove any white edges from showing. I think the blade is getting dull, had to run it a few times making the card smaller and smaller before it cut smoothly.

Stitching

Started: April 14th
Finished: April 20th

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just the front