We are super excited to announce to you that we are adding the Neat and Tangled product line to our store! Watch for their newest release debuting on our store on Monday, January 18th!
We thought it so very fitting to ask Miriam Prantner to join us today as our guest as we make this grand announcement! Miriam has been sharing her talents with us for some time as she joins us when we debute new Essentials by Ellen releases. Her work is always inspiring and she takes my breath away with her creativity - she is so incredibly talented!!
Miriam has designed both stamps and dies for Neat & Tangled and is on their design team as well! You can find more of Miriam's beautiful projects on her blog, Sooner Rather Than Later.
Please join us in thanking Miriam for sharing this fantastic embroidery technique with us today by heading over to her blog Sooner Rather Than Later and leaving a comment there by January 19th. Look for the post where she shares a sneak peek of her project here along with the blog candy shown below. One lucky random winner will receive these goodies Miriam used in creating today's project!
Huge thanks Miriam for sharing your love of needle and paper crafts with us today! Your project is absolutely stunning! -Ellen
I’m thrilled to be this month’s Classroom guest designer! I created a card to share that mixes the Essentials by Ellen line with some Neat & Tangled products (which are now available through Ellen Hutson!).
I love needlecrafts, and wanted to create the look of embroidery with my card.
I first cut the hoop die from some cream cardstock, trimming off the top portion of the negative cut so that only a circle remained.
Then I used two of the dies from the Gourd-jus die set, to create a flower, adhering them to my cardstock circle. Sometimes I’m a bit lackadaisical with my adhesive, but for this technique you want to make sure the dies are well adhered.
Using my smallest beading needle, I began to puncture holes around the flower. If you have a piercing mat you can use that, I have also been known to use the arm of my sofa as a piercing mat from time to time.
Then carefully stitch around the edges of the flower using a backstitch. I wanted a very delicate look here, so I used just one strand of regular sewing machine thread in a dark brown.
You could stop here if you want. I think this is still a very pretty look, but I went ahead and stitched in all the openings as well.
Meanwhile, to prepare the mat, I stamped the small leaf from the Thankful set in Versafine on some white cardstock.
It’s hard to capture in a photo, but you can see the sheen from where the Versafine has been stamped.
I applied some perfect pearls to the stamping....
And voila! I love this soft subtle look.
I also prepared the hoop die. The die was cut four times from scrap white cardstock, and these were layered/adhered together. The final layer was some woodgrain cardstock (I trimmed away the hardware portion of the woodgrain), and some gold mirror cardstock for the hardware.
I also added foam adhesive across the entire back of the stitched circle. This ensures that it’s well supported and also locks in all the stitching/threads.
Then it was just a matter of assembly.
The sentiment is from Neat & Tangled’s Hand Stitched stamp set, and I added just a hint of the gold mirror cardstock beneath to anchor it.
A couple of tips/tricks:
- While the dies I chose are on the intricate side, you don’t need to pick something this detailed. This technique would look lovely with just the outline as I showed above, or with solid dies (Ellen’s Thankful die set includes dies in basically these same shapes, but they are solid).
- If you do choose to do something more intricate like this, don’t worry about mirroring the lines precisely, you can see from the detail shot, that it’s not always right on the line, but it really doesn’t matter for the overall effect. In fact, if you get too close to the side of the die, it’s easy to nick it when you are stitching. Practicing on some scrap paper first (yes I did practice) will help make the end process go much more smoothly. And, for the smallest portions, I didn’t even try to go around the whole opening, I just stitched a single stitch.
- Slow and steady wins the race. Cardstock these days is pretty strong, if you are careful and deliberate with your stitching, even when the holes are close together, you won’t tear the cardstock. Try and keep your needle at a 90 degree angle to your paper so it goes through the holes as quickly an easily as possible.
I hope you enjoyed the card as well as the technique. Thanks so much to Ellen for having me as a guest this month! -Miriam
