Easy Christmas Cards SAL - March

Welcome to the third part of the Easy Christmas Cards SAL! I hope you are all well! If you haven't been seeing all my recent posts you may have missed that I have started a 14 day Mini Magical Mystery SAL yesterday - you can read all about it here. I thought I'd mention it just in case you wanted to join in - catching up should take about 10 minutes at this stage of things. Now back to this month's Easy Christmas Card SAL! This month I used perforated plastic to stitch an ornament that you can fix to the card but as usual you can always stitch it on perforated paper or fabric (fabric may need a bit more work depending on how you decide to finish it).

This is the finished card - with plenty of space for personalisation near the top. I spent about 3 1/2 hours on this - possibly a bit longer as I forgot to start my timer but my hands are playing up (rheumatism) so that slowed me down a fair bit. The finishing itself took less than 10 minutes including making the cord.

I used a bit of 14ct perforated plastic that is 2 1/2 inches square.

You can find the pattern here

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First stitch your ornament. Make sure to keep the back as tidy as you can unless you decide to stick it to felt. I'd attach the felt before the next step so that you can make sure it's cut the exact same size and shape as the ornament for a neater finish.

Note: I actually misjudged what size to make the arch at the top of the ornament so added the hanging loop sooner than is wise to see if I needed to rip or not. The pattern has a larger arch.

Cut away the plastic leaving a border of 1 stitch all around (otherwise your stitching WILL come undone). You will notice that some places I didn't cut - that's because I used a corner of the perforated plastic so had 2 smooth edges.

Now is the correct time to add your hanging cord or ribbon.

Take the card you have chosen to use and make a hole a little down from the top and halfway from both sides. I used my seam ripper to make the hole.

I then grabbed the mega needle that I usually use for making tassels and stabbed it through the hole to make it bigger.

Then I threaded the loop of the ornament through the hole of the needle.

If you don't have a needle that's big enough you can use the old trick of threading a smaller needle with sewing thread (or a bit of leftover floss). You then go through the hole making sure the tail end of the thread stays on the back of the card. Then loop through the ornament hanging loop cord, and finally go back through the hole in the card and pull the cord through (this makes more sense when you try it).

Make sure you pull slowly, and hold the loop bits together before they go through so you don't accidentally break the card.

 

Pull the cord all the way through.

I forgot to take a photo while doing the next bit: thread the ornament through the cord

Make sure it hangs good side facing you.

Note: if you decide to use fabric you can either make it and attach the fabric to the card for a non-removable ornament or finish it so that it can be used as an ornament.

Now you get to have fun and personalise the card!

I hope you like this pattern - and the card! I'll see you tomorrow with the next part of the Mini Magical Mystery SAL and Friday for the next part of the 35 x 35 for 2020 SAL!