Ornament of the Month - March

This month's Birthstone is aquamarine which is really difficult to reproduce in DMC as there just aren't the right shades of blue that convey the right bright blue without going too dark. I used the Swarovski beads I was going to use as the decider for the colours in the end after spending a LOT of time trying to get it right without them. I decided to go with a more Art Nouveau feel this month with the back stitching, as the flowers I created reminded me more of the 20's than anything else. My bf commented that he could see the daggers of one of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle's in the stalk and leaves of the flowers and when I looked again I could see he had a point lol.

Above is the garland finish which, once I have completed them all, will make a lovely garland to wrap around the tree or hang elsewhere, not sure yet but it's going to be amazing! It's 2 1/4" square. I used some Swarovski bicones and a heart as the hanger this month - they are the beads I used for colour inspiration and as you can see it really works. The beads I used for the edging are of unknown origin, they have been in my stash "forever". I was glad to finally have a use for this heart as it was part of the baggie of beads Carla had given me some years ago when she sent me one of the prizes I'd won in a competition over on deviant Art.

This is the ornament finish, at 3" square it's a bit bigger as I used the extra border I created for the wall hanging around the main pattern to make it a little bit bigger. I used the same blue beads from unknown origin for the edging as I did for the garland finish and 6 Swarovski bicones for the tassel which I made by splitting up the 2 threads into 6 parts (each thread split into 3)

Both designs are stitched on 16ct antique white Aida with 3 colours of DMC - pattern can be found here: Ornament of the Month - March - and the hanging loops are made with craft thread my dear bf gave me last September.