Tag frame

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

CraftyK Leave a comment

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

CraftyK Leave a comment

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

finished card laying down side view

Birds on the House

CraftyK Leave a comment

This card has gone through several patterns. The first one was from dailycrossstitch.com. Every time I went to order it, there wasn’t a pattern. The one pattern that is missing from their site. I tried reaching out, but no one responded.

in progress birdhouse

I had found a different pattern that was more complex, but not as bright and fun. Then I got a new cross stitch book and ended up finding this pattern that seemed to fit what I wanted. I don’t know my aunt all that well, so my mom came up with birds and flowers.

pre-backstitching of birdhouse

My aunt used to make beautiful cards for people by stamping and coloring them in. She stopped making them years ago and I am a little sad I wasn’t able to fit any stamping onto the finished card. I do like the paper I found though. I think it really fits with the style of the cross stitch.

I used the Cricut to cut out the frame, used up all the paper since the Cricut messed up as usual and cut off the paper and on the mat instead. Sometimes it likes to do that, other times it works just fine. I never know and can waste a lot of paper and need to pick something else before it cuts right. I’ve been told what it’s doing isn’t normal, so if you end up with a Cricut it will probably work just fine.

Stitching

Started: September 26th
Finished: September 29th

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full front of birdhouse card

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