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Curious Cat

CraftyK Leave a comment

The curious cat. Aren’t they all so curious and frustrating at times? I happen to have 2 of them and know all too well their mischievous ways. Little did I know that a second cousin of mine also has an affinity for these adorable creatures.

It was just finding a pattern that would be fun for a birthday card. I was able to find one in an old pattern book for afghans (blankets, not the people). I’m not sure if this was supposed to be stitched on much larger cloth, but I went with 14 count Aida for this one. This pattern is only 39 stitches high by 42 wide! So small, yet so many stitches in there.

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For the longest time the body of this cat looked like a fish to me. My niece guessed what it was very quickly on Snapchat. The flowers added a nice pop of color to this piece.

I went with all scrap thread for this one since it was so small. I figured I would be safe. I was able to match leftovers from a kit to one of my bobbins of thread I already had. They are close enough I combined them. Can you tell? It’s the one with way more thread than the rest in the picture above.

Once I got to the “framing” of this piece I went for wallpaper. I wanted something brick or at least brick-like and found this goldish heavily textured paper.

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The parts that stand out aren’t wrinkles, they are meant to be there. I wanted to try and align the top line with the rope from the basket, but it wasn’t meant to be. The Cricut isn’t the most reliable thing in the world for matching what you see on the screen to where it might cut your paper. I took a gamble and lost this one, but it still turned out ok. I did like the extra space at the bottom to put a little birthday sign.

I employed the Cricut for some drawing. The letters are drawn with a pen by the Cricut and then it cut out the square. That is mounted with foam tape to be more 3D. I really enjoy foam tape. I was lazy and didn’t find a stamp to try and fit the 3.25″ width I was cutting (to match the frame) so I used the writing feature of the Cricut instead.

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I mounted everything to white cardstock with double sided tape. The wallpaper is struggling to stick though. The backing of this wallpaper is a strange fabric weave type thing.

Stitching

 

Started: January 8th
Finished: January 13th

Follow along on Snapchat!

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Flutterby the Butterfly

CraftyK Leave a comment

I started this pattern at Side Projects Club. It is because of this group that I have gotten through so many cross stitches the last couple of years. This year is turbo mode with all the cards I’ve been making.

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I found this pattern in a library book called Stitch Graffiti by Heather Holland-Daly. I enjoyed this book so much I bought it! I can only dream and aspire to create fun and creative patterns like she has, but for now I will continue with the ready-made ones. I have yet to venture off cloth, but I would like to try stitching on screen sometime, it never would have crossed my mind before reading her book.

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Although I’m not to the point of creating awesome designs, I did do my own thing for the colors. I don’t have the correct variegated thread, so I combined two colors that are close to create my own version of variegation. The colors work well together and stand out from the dark cloth.

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This is the first project that I am branching out from the usual white or cream colored Aida cloth and trying the dark blue. To make things even more complicated I thought I had purchased 14 count, turns out it’s 18 count. So this project got extra small very quickly. Luckily at Side Projects Club there’s lots of light and white tables to bounce light back to see the holes in the cloth. Working on this at home is a bit more of challenge.

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To finish this card I used E6000 to glue the corners to the paper. This thing isn’t moving at all! I think it ended up a little crooked, but overall it turned out very nice. I also used a small corner rounder tool per my mom’s suggestion to make this look a little softer.

This is a birthday card for someone I used to talk to a lot, but we recently had a falling out. I hope she gets it and enjoys, but I can’t be too surprised if it comes back to me as I am not certain of her new address and sent it to the only one I have.

Stitching

Started: July 14th
Finished: July 20th

Follow along on Snapchat!

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This post uses affiliate links. This just means that if you go to the site and end up buying something I’ll get a small percent, this doesn’t increase the cost to you at all. 🙂 Thank you for your support!

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Seed Beads

CraftyK Leave a comment

seed beads_5276-EditI have a large collection of mixed seed beads. Not sure when they became a random mixture. It’s how they have been since I received the tupperware full, well 3 actually. I wanted to make jewelry and I thought maybe having each color separate would be a good idea.

seed beads_5274The execution of this idea is another matter. I’m sure there are some sort of tools that can be used to make this much easier, but right now I’m using the round-about backwards way that gets the job done, but takes a really long time.

seed beads_5273I sit at night watching TV(from the DVR (almost to July!)) and stringing beads onto a wire and drop them into a canister. Only problem was when I forgot to hold the beads at the end they slid off the wire and all over the floor. Now that I have done that, it seems curling up the end might be the solution so I don’t have to pick beads out of the carpet, again.

seed beads_5278So I will continue on my tedious journey of separating all the colors. When I am done sorting, I am hoping to have more inspiration to start working on some beaded jewelry.

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