2026: June update

June just poofed by. I’ll spoil it now, there was not as much progress in June as there was in May.

If you’re still reading after that news, thank you! The biggest thing that made progress take a hit was a work trip. It ended up being longer than expected and I got sick for a bit after.

While it’s not an experience I want to have again anytime soon (or ever), I was able to finish my smallest project. I didn’t trust taking any of the Big 5 with me or my personal laptop.

Below is my completed card for the month. I did use the Cricut to cut out the inside so my lines would be clean.

The big 5 update

If you would like to read the origin stories, you can find that here. Follow my Instagram to see official progress photos when they are released.

I lost about 2 weeks worth of stitching in June, so the progress won’t be as noticeable across everything. But stitches have been added to each project. With a big push the last few days of June.

This is my first year really tracking all of this. My best guess for last year was a little under 30k stitches completed across four of the large projects (Mario started in 2026). As of right now I’m nearly 20k in. I am on track to complete more than last year!

Cats Library, Heaven and Earth Designs.

+959

The Crafter’s Stash

Disintegration, Heaven and Earth Designs

+933

Universal Monsters, Witchy Stitcher’s SAL from 2019

+618

McGonagall, Cross Stitch Studio

+693

Super Mario World Map, Box Cat Shop (Etsy)

+1,064

Monopoly update

Due to the real life stuff, I skipped two turns this round and put in my extra 200 stitches on Big 5 projects. When it was my turn again I landed on 500 stitches on something with an animal. I chose Disintegration as that one needed some attention and I’m not a fan of Dolphin Family.

As more life happened, I didn’t get to it for several days. And there was a community chest that required stitches from another project (my choice not to do Disintegration).

I did put myself on the waitlist for a second Monopoly board. We’ll see how that goes. I won’t be including a small piece or Dolphin Family for the WIPs on a second board to give more attention to the Big 5.

How did June go?

My estimated completion date tracker has been interesting. Sometimes one day can remove several months from the projected finish. Other times it doesn’t seem to affect things at all.

Here’s how I did in June for chipping away at these: 4,267 stitches across the five.

The Big 5 have a combined stitch count of 1,295,620. I’m 5.05% complete with all five, which isn’t bad considering how many days I had to work overall.

It’s an FFO

I did it again! Please don’t expect this to be a regular announcement. Because I finished Turtle Tower, I also made sure it became a finished object. This time a card. (See the top of this post, it’s the only card I made this month.)

Happy crafting!


See finished projects on Instagram @craftyk.3

and watch live on Twitch CraftyK3

3 mini Christmas cards

Christmas bird

The first pattern of three. After stitching this and working through the backstitching, I recommend finding 28 count fabric if you can and working it over 2 holes, effectively still stitching 14 count. I used what the kit came with, which included a lot of making new holes for quarter stitches and backstitching details.

Stitching

Started: June 10, 2025

Finished: June 15, 2025

Stitching time: 3.25 hours

Christmas tree

The second pattern of three. At this point I’m determined to get these done and get back to my full coverage pieces. This one wasn’t the most fun to finish, and the backstitching was a pain. But it’s done now and ready to be placed on the card.

Stitching

Started: June 15, 2025

Finished: June 16, 2025

Stitching time: 5 hours

Holly

The third pattern of three. This one was easier overall. Except I missed a lot of half stitches and had to go back and fill those in. The backstitching went much smoother with most stitches starting and ending in a hold that already existed.

Stitching

Started: June 16, 2025

Finished: June 21, 2025

Stitching time: 4.25 hours

These patterns did come as a kit with square cards and envelopes. Originally I was going to assemble these as intended, but since I intend to list them on my shop, the branding on the back wouldn’t work so well. I changed course, found a stamp with the same sentiment, got out all the Christmas paper I have and set to work making three new Christmas cards. I think they turned out well!

See finished projects on Instagram @craftyk.3
Updates on Snapchat

and watch live on Twitch craftyK3

or buy stuff

New home

When my in-laws moved to a new house, I wanted to make a little card commemorating the move. I came across a pattern I liked in Helen Phillipps’ book with samplers and card designs. I changed the colors used to match the house and used a favorite color to personalize the design more.

If you read this blog, you probably know my new found addiction to Pattern Keeper. I charted out the pattern in WinStitch and exported for Pattern Keeper. Sadly, it still can’t read backstitching, so I did print out a large copy for when I get to that stage.

Somehow I managed to not actually finish the stitching, marked it done in Pattern Keeper, and took a photo before I started backstitching. I made it a couple stitches up the right side of the house before I realized the roof was missing. Instead of taking a different photo, I kept what I had, got my slightly lighter grey out and stitched the roof. Then I continued on with the backstitching.

I did something very different this time when it came to assembly. I live streamed the process on my day-old Twitch account. Yup, that’s a thing now I guess. While setting up my Ko-fi shop again, I decided to look into Discord and Twitch since they seem to be big integrations. Turns out, I think those platforms are better for what I make, so I’m trying it out.

I couldn’t believe my luck with the bottom strip. It’s a piece of wallpaper that matched the aqua and purple in the cross stitch so well!

Stitching

Started: December 31, 2024

Finished: January 19, 2025

Stitching time: 8.25 hours

See finished projects on Instagram @craftyk.3
Updates on Snapchat

and watch live on Twitch craftyk3

2023 Cards

If you don’t want to read the nuances about the cards I created in 2023, this is where you can see them all by month of creation. Regardless of life circumstances I was determined to get some cards made.

Hope this provides some inspiration for your own cards!

March

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May

June

July

August

September

December

Parthenon

I’ve changed. In more ways than one, but for the purpose of this blog, I’ve changed how I make cards.

When I first started making cards it was with some card stock, a glue stick, and wallpaper samples. Now there are stamps, ribbon, buttons, custom cutouts, and more involved.

This card is a product of that change. The background was cut several years ago. The me back then was looking for something interesting looking and that piece would be glued to the folded cardstock.

Today the page cut will now be a background for a cross stitch card. The look of the paper made me think of Greece or Rome and all the pillars. I remembered World of Cross Stitching recently had travel motifs. I found a Parthenon looking one and decided to make it.

Scroll down to see the finished card.

Stitching

Started: August 1

Finished: August 2

Stitching time: 1 hour

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Back 2 School

I committed a design taboo. It wasn’t fully intentional, but it’s how things worked out. The back 2 school text ended up being 3 different fonts. By the end I thought I spelled school wrong I was searching through so many fonts.

Three of the four backgrounds are wallpaper and the super busy background is scrapbook paper. Each card was customized for a different kid to fit their personalities and interests. The kids loved them!

These cards are simple, with the text being the most complicated part. Weeding and then mounting them took the most time with assembly.

Mailbox Stamp and Color

This card is involves a few of firsts for me. A sort of first to start things off, I thought I was going to make 2 of these. Instead of my usual one-of-a-kind. I had a piece of paper to stamp on big enough to stamp twice. I tried, but I underestimated how much ink was left and had a really faded version 2.

It all turned out ok, I used that second try to test out colors.

  • First stamp that needs to be colored
  • First time using alcohol ink markers. (didn’t even know they were a thing until about a month ago)
  • First time adding a stamped message to the inside

I learned that maybe spending a bunch of money on markers that have an extra fine tip might be worth it in the future. Most of the areas are so tiny I couldn’t color in the lines very well. I bought a fairly cheap set on Amazon. The review compared them to the name brand kind that have tri-tips, these only have chisel and brush.

Here’s the inside. It came in the box with the stamp on the front. Based on the packaging I’m pretty sure they are Stampin’ Up. I’m sure others have used this set and made much fancier cards.

I also took a photo from the bottom to show the depth with the foam tape. The wallpaper and cardstock paper are taped down and the cardstock with the stamping and coloring is mounted with foam tape.

I think this card looks awesome and it’s part of my personal collection. Someday the right person will come along that I just have to send it to them.

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Also now on Instagram @craftyk.3

Variety Pack

Spending the majority of 2019 making cross stitch cards I finally got around to using some of the new techniques gained to create some new custom cards.

It was time to up my game with my wallpaper cards. So many of the papers I have may look and/or feel really awesome to me, but they can be a bit bland to look at in a small format. With that in mind I took a few that I had pre-cut to assemble into a “standard” wallpaper card and took it up a level.

There is also a little bit of glitter glue involved since I bought a huge container of them.

Cricut cutout

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Embossing

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Stamping

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Upcycled pieces

 

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Tools of the Trade

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

A Princess

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