Cross Stitched Birthday Tags

Hi all. Hope you're enjoying summertime. We are lucky this year with quite a lot of sunshine in the UK (so far!) I've got plenty time for myself these days :) So alongside with preparing for the driving exam (the less appealing bit!) I'm trying to do some blogging, photographing and of course crafting. I've got 3 projects on the go so I alternate them - a crochet one, a knitting one and a cross stitching one. Just a thought popped into my head: Is this way to keep a multi-crafter happy? What do you think?

 Sothis is what I have stitched recently: a set of birthday tags. They were a freebie to the Cross Stitcher issue 281. 

It's nothing much but I just fancied a small quick project in between the larger ones like Riverdrift House samplers for example :) It was good fun to stitch every of them.

I'm pleased how they turned out. My favourite is the blue tit, strawberry and cherries. All perfect for summer birthdays.  

Today I'm going to join the Hand-made Monday blog hop, no. 179. Get clicking guys!

The Prairie Schooler: Nordic Holiday 1 & 2 / 9

Woohoo! My new festive cross stitch project has begun :) Series: The Prairie Schooler "Nordic Holiday"  - it's a 9 piece Christmas decoration set. Once I'd got the chart in my hands, I just couldn't wait till I have the threads and fabric to start stitching. One Saturday my bf took me to a lovely local embroidery shop hidden up in the Welsh hills and there I purchased a piece of the cream 32 count Jobelan evenweave and the DMC threads. The shade of the green colour surprised me a bit as in real it's much like a fresh green rather than a dark pine green from the picture but I like all shades of green and I'm sticking to the original colours from the chart.

I have stitched the 1st two pieces. Both feature the reindeer :)

I'll be showing you my progress bit by bit - that is the finished stitches themselves first. When I'm done with all 9, I shall move on to make them into decorations, all in one go. They will be ironed, folded, hot gun glued and made into padded pictures backed with felt.  The last stage will be making a wooden display frame for them. My bf promised to help with it. I've got a certain idea for it but we shall see how it comes out. 

Currently I'm working on the 3rd motif - the 2 Christmas birds (turtle doves perhaps?) For the first time I've turned to a quick fraying solution - a masking tape on the edges of the fabric :) This lovely Jobelan evenweave is great to stitch on but it frays so easily! This is what it looks like when taken off an embroidery hoop.

I'm really enjoying stitching all those little festive characters. Can't wait to see all of them put together on display!

3 cards

Between one crochet project and the other, I decided to take a short break and show you my recent three cards :)

Gorgeous Polish folky papers from GoScrap and butterfly stamps from Ambrosia Bitsy by Basic Grey. I wanted something really cheery and vibrant with colours on this card.

A highly contrastive card with a folky feel ) Martha Stewart's punches - Garden Gate and the Floral Heart punch. 

And finally my first attempt to make a card with a Dala horse. I used a Panduro stamp and coloured the outlines with Promarkers. Didn't have any idea what to do with the flower though! Tried all the arrangements possible and wasn't fully happy with any of them. The flower ended up being glued in eccentric circles. 

Mega-tired today. Off to my bed. Will do some blog visiting tomorrow. Thanks for popping by and leaving a trace behind :) x x x

New Baby Cross Stitched Card. A very "stitchy" weekend.

This weekend has been all about cross stitching. Woohoo! Finally, I have finished my cross stitched teddy  and mounted it on a card. I was backstitching it all afternoon yesterday and today I've washed it, ironed it and mounted on the card and embellished the whole thing :) Quite elaborate piece of work considering how many hours have gone into stitching the teddy itself plus how much time I spent today pondering on the card layout and choosing the right stamps! :) Pink gingham paper was a must! - I just love gingham patterns. Cross stitched cards are the most time-consuming types of cards but they are so unique and special in this way. Not bad ;) Pleased with the results.

The card will go to my colleague, who recently has had a baby - gorgeous ginger-haired Millie May. Hope she likes it. 

The cross stitch design comes from Cute Cross Stitch magazine, a newbie on the press market, issue no.1, Spring 2013. The stamps I used to make a tag: Nordic Baby from The Waltzing Mouse Stamps and the punched lacy heart border was made using Martha Stewart punch Heart Border. 

Still on the cross stitch frontline, yesterday a new issue of subscribed Cross Stitcher arrived through the post and since I just loved their added freebie, I started stitching it immediately :) These 3 supa cute retro / folksy flowers are sooooo my style! They will make a set of 3 cross stitched notelets. 

I'm really enjoying stitching them right now!

Speaking of the cute flowers, I have been sooo over the moon when I managed to get hold of these 2 gorgeous sets of stamps:

In a way they are very special for me. These are the stamps by Basic Grey from 2009 - series: Ambrosia Bitsy Bohemia stamps. Very difficult to buy now as they are the retired products. I spotted them being reserved and then bought by someone else in a 2nd hand craft market group on facebook (doh!) and since I'm always on the lookout for the craft products with a unique folky feel, I knew I had to find a set like this for myself too. I scoured the whole internet looking for them and finally some persistent search on ebay made my dream come true :)))) there was one seller in Germany who was still selling them and now I can enjoy card making with these beautiful designs. How lucky I was! My favourites among these sets are naturally the  gorgeous folky butterfly, 2 birds on the branches and a folky medallion with a butterfly inside (two separate stamps).

To finish off with this stampaholic confession, I'm linking up tonight at Hand-made Harbour to do some blog hopping. Hope all you have had a good weekend and enjoyed the last two sunny days. x x

Back to folklore

Oh yes! I'm back to the folklore again and I will be doing it so in the future. Got a heap of gorgeous folksy scrapbooking papers, punches and stamps to work through and to show off  :) So here is my another try at this rustic countryside theme :)

This is a largely stamped card with stamps from Noolibird (the cockerel), GoScrap (folky flowers, 3 hearts) and Hero Arts and Kars stamps (the stamped frame, sorry, don't remember the name of these stamp sets. I've had them for years and got rid of the original packaging.) Blue, white and green is the colour combination I wanted to see on this card. The cockerel has been heat-embossed in a moss green embossing powder.

Purple and mint  below :) Another long narrow tent card with a decorative cockerel band (I think this is my favourite patterned paper). These great folky papers come from  a Polish scrapbooking brand - GoScrap. I also did a trick with breaking the ribbon and filling the gap with some self-adhesive gems. 

Upper and bottom stamped band - Hero Art stamp set.
"Jest pięknie!" stamp from GoScrap.

Thank you for visiting my blog. Have a lovely day. x

2 Cards with folky birds

More folky cards on my cardmaking frontline as I'm enjoying myself at this stamping session. This time it's 2 cards with a stamped and embossed red folky bird. The stamp is a Noolibird brand. The background backing papers is Marianne's Designs, Eline's Warm Winter Wishes - a set full of cosy knitted patterns. I chose the crocheted granny squares for the background, I thought they would look good in the rustic theme. Lacy band at the bottom has been punched with Martha Stewart's Botanical Scallop Punch.

And another go at the red folky bird. This time the backing paper is from Panduro website- the cross stitch set.

The other embellishments are the punched daisies, glass painting relief (red and white), sparkly mini gems, ribbons and a tag from GoScrap.

Sparkly Cards (1)

Last Saturday I was going through my card making magazines and I found this freebie:

2 sheets of backing paper and 2 sheets with the coordinated embellishments to make your own cards. I especially liked the mint green ones so I started with them first. The label on the packaging says you can make at least 3 cards. Did they mean 3 out of each colour set or 3 altogether? No idea. Eventually, I ended up with 9 - 5 mint green cards and 4 pink ones :) As I tend to jazz things up a bit, I've added some of my stuff too - sparkly adhesive gems, punched laces, ribbons, peel offs and some backing papers. I like a bit of sparkle, and you?

The papers and card toppers themselves are very ornamental so I tried not to overdo the cards. I like the shiny mirror-like elements on them. The sparkly gems have been added to accentuate this shiny jewel effect.

For a change, the leafy green background and ribbons have been chosen for the garden-themed card topper.

More sparkly cards coming soon :)

Stamped Christmas Cards (1)

Christmas card making is something I always look forward to and I always can't wait to dig out my festive craft toys so I like to start early :)) I've recently had a stamping session using one of the fabulous festive stamps from Noolibird - Christmas Garland. One stamp but many variations of colours and backgrounds. I tried different inks and different shades of red but found out that not all of them worked well enough for me. I'm still looking for a perfect ink with such a shade of red that would look good on Nordic-style cards and would produce a crisp image. Some new ink pads to arrive from ebay soon!

Here is my 1st batch of cards. I obviously started with the red-white cards and used some brown craft paper as backing (I love using it!). Eco-style combined with a Nordic theme :))

Then I created a couple in blue...

and in green:

Some group photos:

More stamped cards to follow soon.

Time to join the Hand-made Monday. Get clicking guys and head over to the Handmade Harbour to have a look at some crafty stuff.