Tag Cricut

Winter Scene (Art. 126)

CraftyK Leave a comment

This cross stitch pattern is from a kit that was supposed to be made into an ornament. I’m not a Christmas tree person and personally have no need for ornaments and turned this into a card instead.

While the design is small and seems easy, it was more challenging than I expected. Not only is it tiny (and a tiny piece of fabric provided) it has quite a few colors. Along with backstitching to finish it off.

The card was a multi-step process. After picking the paper, I decided I wanted to make it a frame. Because the pattern is small and no words are stitched on it I also wanted to add some text.

I’ve acquired many stamps over the last few years, but I have avoided Christmas ones. With no stamp and not wanting to handwrite anything I chose to use the writing feature of my Cricut. Since I don’t pay for Access that means any font I use is outlined and not a single line.

I decided that wasn’t a problem because I recently bought alcohol markers and could color it in. In my head I just made my own stamp. The nice thing about that was more color options and testing colors before working on the final version. No cleaning a stamp between color tests!

For this card everything is heald together with double sided tape. Nothing too fancy there. I did use interfacing fabric to seal off the back of the cross stitch.

Stitching

Started: April 12

Finished: April 19

Stitching time: 4 hours

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Also now on Instagram @craftyk.3

2021 Cards

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If you don’t want to read the nuances about the cards I created in 2021, this is where you can see them all by month of creation. Due to continued life circumstances there are very few cards created. You can also use this to get some inspiration for your own cards!

May

July

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August

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October

Craftyk

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2020 Cards

CraftyK Leave a comment

If you don’t want to read the nuances about the cards I created in 2020, this is where you can see them all by month of creation. Due to life circumstances there are very few cards created. You can also use this to get some inspiration for your own cards!

May

July

August

For real-time updates
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Grandma turns 90!

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It’s not everyday you know someone who has been around for nine decades. My husband’s grandma now has. We’re having lunch with her to celebrate along with other members of the small family.

Her husband also reached 90, however he didn’t live much longer after that. We didn’t know his birthday would be the last we saw him well. Such is life, some people get more of it than others.

The card I had made for my husband’s grandpa can be found here. I came up with the idea easily since he was a former farmer and was always asking about how the farming community has been doing in Iowa and Nebraska. The card was a hit, so I had some pressure with getting this second card right.

I went through a few different ideas. If you want to see some of the inspiration cards I found on Pinterest you can see my Birthday Card board here. The first idea I had involved wallpaper. The second idea had me trying to print a border from a design pattern pack I downloaded recently. This was my third attempt.

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I found cardstock that had flower like the printed pattern I wanted to use. (That did not go well at all!) I knew I wanted to use my scripty stamps for happy and birthday, which left the 90th. I wanted a big bold font and found that Impact does the job nicely. I used gold adhesive foil for the letters.

To make sure I spaced out my glitter glue dots evenly I created a dotted line box in Illustrator. In a way I designed the elements in there, then used some of it in the Cricut Design space for the cutting. Like the cutout behind the 90 I drew around the 90th typed in AI. I made the layers different colors so it would pull 2 mats for the Cricut to cut on (the paper and foil). I printed just the dotted line box and made sure it fit inside of the frame, since I wanted the dots inside.

Double sided tape and foam tape were used to put it all together. The stamping is directly on the cardstock base. The foil has weird patterning on it from the press n’ seal I used, it wasn’t holding and the sticky stuff really sticks when you push it on too hard. Does give it an interesting texture though.

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May the Fourth…Be With You

CraftyK Leave a comment

First of all happy May the Fourth to all of you who celebrate! Since I have become much better at documenting projects on this blog it looks like my last May 4th card was in 2018. If you want to check it out you can here.

My brother and his family are really into Star Wars. Recently I went into the upper attic of our parents house and found some original Kenner Star Wars puzzles. I temporarily kidnapped them to make them and will be delivering them today to my brother and his family (on their porch of course) along with this card.

There were some missing pieces, but here are the puzzles:

Now to the card. I used the free fonts from dafont.com that have Star Wars looking text and some dingbats. Using the Cricut I cut out the words and images from a piece of black scrapbook paper. The base of the card is 110lb white cardstock.

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I recycled the letters, but held onto the characters and ships. Can’t let awesome confetti go to waste! Then some inspiration struck and I added a little glitter glue to them. I tried to get colors as close to the movies as possible. Believe it or not there is black glitter glue, I used that and silver for the tie fighter. Had to improvise for the more metal/grey color they are.

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For the inside I did the same idea as the front to finish the phrase with “be with you”.

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The pictures under the black are a collage from consecutive days of my 2016 daily calendar that I use for my Star Wars cards. I really like how the front turned out, but the inside ended up a little too far to the right, but you still get the idea of what’s underneath if you study it long enough. All of the art is from A New Hope.

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bottom up angle view of tools card

Tools of the Trade

CraftyK Leave a comment

What do you get when you cross a welder and a wood crafter? This card! Also you get the final card of the #cardproject2019. This has been an intense year of cross stitching for sure, but now it has come to a close. The final birthday today, December 31st.

I pulled a few tools out of a larger pattern called Grandpa’s Workshop from the May/June 1993 Cross Stitch & Country Crafts magazine. This way they would fit on a card and be relevant to his interest of wood crafting.

tools before backstitching

The saw blades were the hardest to stitch and outline. A bunch of quarter stitches all in a row is hard to do and keep consistent. I seem to have a hard time parting the fabric right in the middle to get a nice clean look. This might be something that is only noticeable to other stitchers too.

In my paper I didn’t find anything I liked much so went for my wallpaper stash. I found the paper I used first, then saw a foam wood paper that I considered for the frame. While wood seems to make more sense the tools seemed to get lost more with it, so I went with my initial thought of the silver.

Then it was deciding if I wanted to put the dark area in the middle or just the bottom. Putting it at the bottom won since it’s hard for me to line up the Cricut to cut exactly where I wanted. Getting a dark stripe right in the center would be too hard so I went with below and I think it works well.

front angle view of tools finished

The paper sample was smaller than most to begin with and my first try I didn’t measure the hole correctly. Luckily the pattern is banded so I flipped it around and tried again with more breathing room around the cross stitch. I used double sided tape to hold everything together.

Stitching

Started: November 16th
Finished: November 27th

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full front of tools card

angled layflat of princess

A Princess

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One of my cousins who married into the family is a huge Disney princess fan. While I didn’t have any patterns of actual Disney princesses I did find this generic princess on dailycrossstitch.com.

Since it is for a card I ended up stitching it on 22 count to make it small enough to fit a 4.25×5-inch card. As with most of the patterns from Daily Cross Stitch there was no backstitching. This helps speed up some patterns to just stitch and be done.

This also means less pictures to take as I go since there isn’t a difference after adding backstitching. Or what I like to call outlining. Since that’s essentially what you are doing.

close up of princess

Not much to say about this card. It’s very straightforward with the stitching and the frame is made from wallpaper. I was able to line it up on the Cricut well enough to get the loop over the right corner. I liked the swirls on this wallpaper and that it is thick and has texture to it. All of that made it a great finishing touch to this card.

Stitching

Started: November 6th
Finished: November 16th

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full front of princess card

birghter card text

You Are Sunshine

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Some of the cards I have made this year went through a few changes. Originally this cross stitch pattern was going to be made for my uncle, instead I made it for his wife. I was having a hard time coming up with what to make her.

My uncle is my godfather so in our family that meant I would exchange gifts with him every year at Christmas. He is also the godfather to one of my cousins. We would both receive a cross stitch ornament of some religious Bible theme (Christmas based) as the bow of our wrapped gifts. Every year my aunt would pick out a different pattern and stitch it for us, put it into a tiny frame so we could hang it on the tree.

sunset stitching bottom of card

My aunt is involved with several volunteering activities along with watching most of her grandkids on a daily basis. If you need her somewhere, she finds a way to make it happen. I’m not sure if she cross stitches much anymore, but a cross stitch card is very fitting for her.

The saying on this card is Some people make the world brighter just being in it. I feel like that is something very fitting for her. She gives of her time and talents as often as she can.

brighter card laying down

I chose the simple brown paper for the frame to really let the colors of the stitching stand out. I also used a lighter tan paper as the base instead of the standard white.

Besides the Cricut ripping up my first 3 attempts at cutting this frame, assembly went well. Double sided tape and interfacing fabric can be your best friends when making cross stitch cards.

Stitching

Started: October 26th
Finished: October 27th

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full front of brighter cross stitch

top of Boba Fett card

Boba Fett

CraftyK Leave a comment

Anyone else have some Star Wars fans in their life? I have a few and bought the AMAZING Star Wars cross stitch pattern book (not an affiliate link). It’s so nice to have a book of patterns that are official to use for people who really love this universe.

Boba Fett in progress

You may remember in February I made the 3 Stormtrooper pattern for my nephew (my brother’s kid). My brother is more known for his Chewbacca costume, but I swear at some point he has mentioned Boba Fett. So on that point I’m hoping for the best. There just weren’t any Chewie patterns that I liked.

This card ended up being a 5×7 because it is fairly tall. I special ordered some sage colored 14 count Aida cloth. I think the book called for something even darker, but I think this worked out well. The photos don’t capture the color of the cloth, either too blue or yellow, just wasn’t into balancing today.

laying down angled view of Boba Fett card

The inside of the card is also unique. I have a daily calendar from 2016 that I’ve been slowly using on Star Wars cards for my brother and nephew. This time I used 3 pages to line the inner left side of the card. This makes it even more Star Wars-y right? Even though it’s from the beginning of A New Hope, it’s still the right movie series.

reusing daily Star Wars calendar

The frame and stitching are mounted on regular white card stock. The black frame was cut out with my Cricut. Everything is taped down using double sided tape.

Stitching

Started: October 16th
Finished: October 21st

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Boba Fett full front of card

top down angle of fairy in rain with flower umbrella

A Fairy in the Rain

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This cross stitch was a long time in the making. Not the physical making, but the “I’m going to make this someday” making. The moment I saw this in the April 2018 issue of Just Cross Stitch (you can buy it here, just a link direct to the issue, I don’t get any kickback) magazine I knew I wanted to make it for my best friend.

Then last year we started talking about another book I had gotten that was Care Bears. So she got that instead. You can see that one here. That was my very first 22 count pattern. I did 2 threads on that thing, tons of quarter stitches and enormous frustration. The only thing I learned on that one was to use a smaller needle. Unfortunately it took until earlier this year to learn that in addition to the smaller needle you use 1 thread.

Even though this year has been madness and adding another more challenging pattern to the mix wasn’t advisable by anyone, I was determined to make this pattern.

bottom up view of fairy card showing text

I did recently use the same paper for another more complex pattern that I just had to make and felt it was fitting for this card as well. My friend is an artist, graphic and mix media. For a long while she was really into watercolors and this paper reminds me of that so I wanted to use it. It pulls some of the colors from the pattern, but really it was for the watercolor effect that I used it.

The frame was cut with the Cricut. I’m still fighting with it to cut correctly the first time, hopefully we’ll come to a resolution soon.

Due to the time constraints I’m under to finish these cards and working two other jobs I didn’t take any “in progress” photos except on Snapchat. I broke with my (until the last few months) tradition of doing all backstitching at the very end and was doing it as I went along for the most part. Showing that contrast is always awesome, I hope to do more of the before/after photos in the future.

Stitching

Started: October 6th
Finished: October 16th

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full front of fairy card