Easy Christmas Cards SAL - January

Welcome to the first of the Easy Christmas Cards SAL! I'm running late again - sorry! This month to start things off I have stitched on perforated paper as it gives you lots of options of how to use it next. If you don't have perforated paper that's fine, just use fabric instead.

This is my embroidery after I stitched it and cut it out - you can see that I chose to do "curved" cut outs - and that my scissors were not as pointy as I needed.

I used 14ct cream perforated paper I have had in my stash "forever" as it was part of a pattern book from DMC that I bought back in the 90s. The thread I used was Kreinik #4 Very Fine Braid 002J but any metallic will do.

It took me about 1 1/2 hours to stitch and cut out - with several disruptions in between so it probably took less actual stitching time. The finishing this time was really easy so only took 20 minutes - I have not finished the inside of the card yet, I couldn't find my "Merry Christmas" stamp, but that too won't take long.

You can download the pattern here

---

Once you have stitched your embroidery and cut it out then you can start thinking of how to make it into a card.  This is what I did:

Regular card making card stock.

Measure its size - this is 27 x 13.5cm / 10 2/3" x 5 1/3"

Measure half the width - and a little less to accommodate the width of the scissors.

Open your scissors and use them to scratch (score) the paper to mark where the fold will be.

Fold in half - sometimes you don't quite get it perfectly even - just trim off the excess.

Place your embroidery on the card. Do you want it like this...

Or like this...?

I didn't have thick spongy stickers for 3D cards so I improvised with this thinner foam like tape - I cut 3 pieces, removed the backing paper and stacked them up. Then I cut it into 4 and used that.

Place on the back of the embroidery - make sure they don't stick out from behind the paper!

Place on card base and press down - and there you have a completed card!

Of course you can embellish all you like on this - I'm just giving a starting point. I may add a silver or gold outline around the cut out embroidery as soon as I find where my metallic pens are...

Of course if you have stitched the embroidery onto fabric you can do much the same but then you can fray the edges instead of trimming to shape.

I hope you like this pattern - and the card! I'll see you Friday for the first of this year's NFSAL patterns!