[sg_popup id=”1″ event=”onload”][/sg_popup]Find the best way to glamorise your free cross stitch pattern and find unusual inspiration for making your own.
Originally many people found their way into card making via cross stitching. Whilst making their own birthday or Christmas card they would stitch a design for it and put that into an aperture card. But that would inevitably look a little plain. So along came fancy scissors for making decorative edges and corners, perhaps even add some peel off stickers to liven things up a bit.
Something as simple as a silver or gold ‘Happy Birthday” sticker could really enliven the card. But so could flashy gold and silver border peel offs or corners. You could even use a small decorative embellishment placed tastefully beneath the stitched picture. Or what about a dry embossed border or pattern on the aperture card? They would all work fantastically well.
You can find hundreds of free cross stitch patterns online, but why not try look for unusual inspiration to get some ideas suitable for card making.
- The free images you can get on this site. If you like your apertures, many of the vintage images have pretty borders that you can cut the center out of and mount your stitched piece behind. Mount both onto a plain card.
- Craft stencils you already have – draw around the shapes onto your fabric, then stitch up however you wish.
- Free digital stamps and printable papers
- Look at antique samplers online and see if there are any designs to inspire you
- Or, how about trying to design your own patterns and motifs? Either use graph paper or one of the many cross stitch software packages out there. If you have some image editing software that you can place a grid onto, you can colour in the ‘pixels’ as if they were stitches as well.
Another reason many cross stitchers decided to take up paper card making was because it was quicker and they wondered what the point was of stitching a card if it would just be thrown away. I think if someone is going to throw away something you have spent time working hard on, they probably didn’t deserve your effort in the first place.
To make cross stitch greeting cards more ‘modern’ or to give them a twist you could try the following:
- Make ‘stitched toppers’ – small designs that are mounted on TOP of your card, not behind an aperture
- Make a cross stitch greeting panel instead of a picture: a name or just ‘happy birthday’ with a mini floral or two perhaps
- Stitch a border to go around the card
- If you have the software, you could import some of the ‘digital scrapbooking’ freebies you can find, and stitch those. Stitching background papers and embellishments for your cards, or stitch the paper designs and mount traditional card making embellishments on top of your cross stitched ‘paper’
- Make the cards a ‘keepsake’ so they won’t be thrown away
If you want nest edges you can try using normal.fabrucs and cut them as close as you can before sealing the edges with clear glue. You could even try a glitter glue that goes with the pattern. Or, if you can get your hands on it, try plastic canvas or stitching paper.
Don’t forget that using different threads an make a very easy possibly boring shape all the more attractive. Something like a simple heart stitched in metallic or variegated thread with be much more interesting and have a greater impact than just using plain thread.
Just using your imagination will enable you to fund cross stitch patterns in almost anyplace. Be that your own craft supplies software, the world around you or just simply free printable patterns online.