Cross Stitch Owl

Something new from Free Craft Downloads this week

Cross Stitch Charts
There are a nice selection of Free Cross Stitch Charts for you this week
Bob has been busy

With each picture you get
The Picture
Pattern information sheet for 14, 16, and 18 count Aida
Chart
Thread key/chart


Cross stitching is a great hobby to have - it's very rewarding and therapeutic (it has certainly helped me through a difficult week)
These charts on Free Craft Downloads are very easy to follow and have full stitches so are ideal for beginners - they print out quite large on an A4 sheet so are easy on the eye as well - no more squinting trying to see what symbol a particular colour is

The Charts use "Anchor" threads but obviously you can use other makes of thread too
I used a combination of Anchor and DMC threads you can get conversion charts to help with thread numbers etc they sometimes say the colours may differ slightly but on the whole they match up well

I chose to do the owl simply because it was easy to do and I like it! It took me a total stitching time of five and a half hours some of you may be able to do it in less time others may take longer
Personally I don't take a lot of notice when charts give an approximate time for completion I prefer to take my time with them and enjoy doing them

The pictures below show the design in various stages

My Finished Picture

If you are interested in other free charts and hints and tips, projects etc.. We have a Cross Stitch section over on Free Craft Stuff
There you will find some sites which may be of interest to you

If you want to be kept up to date when new designs etc are added on Free Craft Downloads you can sign up for the Newsletter
If you have any questions about any designs etc or just want a chat in general you are welcome to join our Forum
If you have made cards using any of the designs and would like to show them in The Gallery please do, or you may prefer you own gallery rather than the general one (you will need to become a member in order to do so)

Interlocking Thank You Card

I have been having a look through some of the older papers on Free Craft Downloads and "rediscovered" the "Cloth" section There are some really nice papers in there
I chose two of them to make this Interlocking Thank you card

1 sheet of A4 white card
1 sheet of A4 white paper
2 sheets of A5 white card
2 medium size pink gems
6 small size purple gems
Cloth18 backing paper (printed on the white card)
Cloth 10 backing paper (printed on white paper)
Interlocking template (printed in draft on the reverse of the cloth backing paper
Flower1 Purple decoupage Printed on A5 card (2 copies)

I cut out the flowers and assembled them I used 3 layers, when I stuck the layers on I turned them slightly so it looks like the flower has more petals
To the centre I added a pink gem on each of the 2 flowers I made
I then left them to dry while I made the rest of the card
I printed the cloth18 backing on one side of the A4 white card then on the reverse I printed the template in draft and cut around the faint blue lines
I folded along the faint blue dashed lines then to the outer corners I stuck 3 small purple gems on opposite 2 corners I also stuck on the 2 Flowers and edged them with a clear sakura pen for a bit of sparkle
For the inside of the card I printed "cloth10" on the sheet of white paper then put it back through the printer to print the verse on it
I trimmed it to fit the centre of the card and stuck it to the card

The Finished Card

Paper Weave Christmas Card

Remember Paper Weaving from your School days
Over under over under.......... under over under over

I thought I would make a Christmas card
I have quite a few "Scraps" of papers so thought I would use some of the strips to do some Paper weaving an ideal way to use your left overs.



I used the Bell front Template (5x7 size)
1 A4 piece of red card (folded in half and cut to 5x7 size)
scraps of Christmas designs papers

There is a good selection of Basic Templates and Christmas papers on Free Craft Downloads if you haven't already seen them or just want to refresh your memory

For my base I just used plain white copier paper you could use card if you wanted in a colour of your choice
The plain copier paper works fine as the strips of paper strengthen it as they are weaved through.
My base was 12cm wide by 14cm high
Leaving a gap of 1cm top and bottom, I cut 1/2cm vertical lines down the width using a craft knife
I cut 1/2 cm strips of the Christmas papers (the ones I chose were red bells and green candy canes) then started weaving them through the base
When I had finished I put a strip of double sided tape around the outer edge so it would stick to the Card
On the red card I placed the bell template so the bell was in the centre on the front and with a pencil faintly drew around the outline of the bell (you could leave the card A4 in size and print the template directly on to it then cut out)
Using a craft knife I cut around the bell then edged the aperture with a gold border peel off
Then peeled off the strip of double sided tape from the paper weaving and fixed it to the bell, if you want to neaten the back up then just put another piece of the same coloured card over it
I also edged the outer edge of the card with one too
In each corner I used some peel off bells and added a Merry Christmas peel off centred near the bottom

And there we have it - My first Christmas card for this year
You could use any of the basic templates and any of the backing paper designs to make similar cards

Oval Card

A flip card that doesn't flip

To make this card I have used the Oval Flip Card Template from Free Craft Downloads
This time I thought I would show that you can still use these templates even if you don't want the card to "Flip"

I used
Oval Flip Template
Bells 11 Backing Paper
Blue Bells Decoupage
I printed out the template then put it back through the printer to print the Bells 11 design on it
I cut out the Oval shape and around the outer edge of the rectangular bit but left the oval in the centre



Then I only cut out the top half of the oval shape then folded the rectangle in half
It will look like in this picture here on the left









You will see the very faint outline of the oval shape I used this as a guideline to add a silver border peel off around the edge of the oval

I decided to add the inner oval shape with reverse side showing so it was plain white and added a silver border peel off around the edge
To this I added the Bells Decoupage which I had made up

To finish off I added a Happy Anniversary Peel off
and a small peel off flower in the centre at the bottom

Lilly

While out shopping yesterday Megan bought herself a "Rag Doll" kit

Meet Lilly

The kit contained an unstuffed Doll, a bag of stuffing, a plain white t-shirt, some gems, fabric paint and glue. (Not bad for the reduced price of £2-50)

As Megan added the stuffing we decided it would be a nice idea to add some Lavender to the stuffing to make her nice and scented so picked some from the garden then continued to add the stuffing
I sewed up the seam at the back for her
She painted a flower on grass on the T-shirt and added the gems where she wanted them then left it to dry

Megan chose the name Lilly for her and asked me to put a picture of it on the blog