Wednesday, June 24, 2009

In Stitches

First things first...The pictures suck I know that my camera is being fixed and so I had to use the little snappy so as soon as my other camera gets back I will retake the pictures!

Now gather your supplies, you will need:
a permanent marker
a piece of acetate (I use left over pieces of transparency paper from work)
a piercing tool (a push pin will work just fine)
a mouse pad or piece of cardboard
the design you would like to stitch (this could be a print out, a piece of chipboard, a stamp...)
Needle and thread

Start with your acetate over your desired design and grab your marker.

Trace your design like in the picture below with the marker.

Once the whole thing is traced use your piercing tool to punch holes in the acetate. It doesn't have to be perfect that is part of the charm. Remember to put a mouse pad or piece of cardboard underneath first. You are done creating your template. It will look like this.

Place your layout on top of the mouse pad or piece of cardboard then place your template on top of that in the area you want your stitching. Hold down with one hand firmly while you punch holes with the other. Make sure to go in the holes you created when making your template and you may need to push the piercing tool a little harder depending on the # of layers you are going through.
Once your holes are in the layout thread your needle and go to town! Here is a layout using this template.

For my smile page I traced one of the flowers from the red pattern paper to create the template for the red flower on the bottom right corner.

Finally, here is an example of a very detailed template. I got the tree body from a 2 piece foam tree stamp.

I hope you enjoy creating your own templates! Please feel free to ask questions or ask for clarification or better examples. I would also love to see what you come up with so share your pages with me and a picture of your template inspiration piece. There might just be an RAK for one lucky follower :)

17 comments:

  1. That's wicked awesome! I've always wanted to try stitching but it seems impossible!

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  2. That is awesome Melissa...if I paper scrapbooked I would definitely do that it looks so awesome.

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  3. Great how to Melissa - love your layouts!!

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  4. fantastic tutorial hun! TFS! As always,your layouts are pretty!

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  5. Woohoo you're a genius! That's fabulous, and I love your tutorial. Thank you so much for sharing!

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  6. Love this! Very easy to follow and a great idea!!!

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  7. this is so amazing Melissa, i am definately going to try this. thanks for the great lesson.

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  8. Melissa- Very nice! Your tutorial is very easy to follow. I am going to try this. I need to buy needle and thread first. LOL

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  9. What a fantastic tutorial! Great idea!

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  10. hi Melissa!

    Would love for you to have a go a this months challenge at ARTastic, thanks for popping in

    cheers
    Shazza

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  11. Love your layouts! Great Job!
    Cool idea "In Stitches", thanks for sharing.

    **Sony**

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  12. Hi Melissa,

    Love this blog, some great works of art here!

    If you're bored lol...... and looking for a challenge with a twist, why dont you try one of my challenges at either ARTastic = http://artasticchallengeblog.blogspot.com/
    or
    From Screen 2 Scrap = http://screen2scrap.blogspot.com/
    I would love to see you participate and have a go!!

    Cheers
    Shazza

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  13. What a fantastic idea!! I'm totally gonna post about this on my blog. I'll give you the credit and put a link to this post. :)
    - April

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  14. Great Stitching Tutorial - Thanks so much for sending me the link to the St Patrick's Day Page you did - love your take on it and the extra elements you added! Amy http://aimitup.blogspot.com/

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