Double Easel Naming Day Card for a Boy, with Card Embroidery.

Hi Bloggers,

How's everyone today? There is one good thing about this strange summer we're having, loads of time to do some card embroidery and todays card is an embroidered one. It's a 'Naming the Baby' card, which is quite unusual. I think that's why I liked it,  I love things a bit unusual and this certainly is. The nice thing about card embroidery is that you can choose which colour pallette you want to use. In this case I chose blue for a boy.

The template is from stitching cards, I have quite a few designs from there now. I covered how to do card embroidery and what materials I use in March of this year. If you fancy having a go, have a look  here.

The shape I used for the main part of the easel is the grand labels eleven die from spellbinder. I used white 220gsm linen card for the main design, the same card in cream for the second layer and a pale pearlescent blue for the third layer, which I turned longways and mounted onto the easel. Before mounting it I had to shape the main easel layer to fit the blue layer. It looked odd otherwise with white corners sticking out!!!

The verse and the with love were printed on my laser printer and then hot foiled in silver. The verse was mat and layered onto the same cream and white card. The with love shape is a grommet tag die, again from spellbinder. This was faux layered with onto cream linen card. I added a small silver coloured cross and some beaded hearts for embellishment and that final touch.

Of course I'll have to do one in pink now, I can't leave the girls out, can I?

Hope you like it.

I'm entering this card into the following challenges :-

Oo La La Challenge Blog - Baby baby.

Crafters Companion Challenge Blog - Time to embellish. 

See you soon and thanks for coming by and looking at my work.

Jools. xxx

Card Embroidery and Papercrafts with step by step tutorial.

Hello from a gorgeous sunny Lincolnshire.

Thought I'd upload something a bit different today. I started doing card embroidery about a year ago and I absolutely love it. I've always loved sewing in some form or another, but never thought for one minute I'd be embroidering onto card. But as you can see, if you use a nice image and pretty colours, the finished cards look great.

All the illustrations I use are from a company called stitching cards. Every occasion you can think of, there will be an illustration. You just purchase, download and print. Easy.

Each pattern comes with full instructions, full colour illustrations, and a pricking template. I do advise that you print in colour, as it makes the guide easier to follow. This is a new one I've downloaded today. I print the instructions on normal copier paper and the pricking template on 220gsm card.

Secure the template onto your chosen card, I usually use one with some texture. The weight can be anything from 120gsm - 250gsm, if you get much thinner the stitching can tear through and if you go thicker the card isn't pliable enough. I use a standard pricking tool, not too fine, and the reverse side of a mouse mat to pierce onto.

You can use any cotton, there are no hard and fast rules. As you can see I have loads, so I won't be running out any time soon. These two boxes were a free gift with a sewing machine I bought a couple of years ago. I forgot I had them. The ones at the back are metallic. This thread can be a bit difficult to sew with. The other thread is polyester, by far the easiest thread to use, and such a wide selection of colours. I always use my threads double, with a blunt embroidery needle. Just make sure it's a smaller size than the pierced holes.

Secure the threads at the back of the work with sticky tape, I use either masking tape or invisible clear tape. It has to be very sticky though, so no low tack tape. It can sometimes look a bit messy but once it's been mat and layered, you can't see it.

Here's a few finished toppers before being made into cards. The top ones are in polyester and the bottom ones in metallic.

Here are some more cards finished. Sunflowers are supposed to be very popular this year, so perhaps I'll need to make some more. They won't be on square mats though, I've added spellbinders  to my crafty stash since first doing these cards, so I'll be embroidering onto different shapes from now on.

Thanks for dropping by, hope this post inspires you to have a go. I feel the need to go out and sit in the sun, and maybe do a bit of embroidery while I'm out there.


Bye...........

Jools. xxx