Do you prefer a Halloween that’s more cute than creepy? Angela’s here with a card that certainly falls into the cute category, and incorporates string art for pops of fall-inspired color.
Hey there friends, and Happy Fall! While I’m always sad to see summer go, lately I’ve been having so much fun playing with autumn design themes and color palettes in my craft room. Today’s card features one of the cute little critters from the latest Essentials by Ellen release, and if you’re looking at the photo above thinking “string art isn’t for me”, don’t worry – this is a totally beginner-friendly project! Grab your stitching dies because I’ll walk you through exactly how I did it.
To begin, I selected a few different colors of DMC embroidery floss and gathered my needle, needle threader and scissors. Next, I used the Essential Rectangles dies and one rectangle from the Essential Rectangles for Stitching die set to create a thick border frame for my card, plus a slightly smaller dotted frame. This is what you’re seeing in the photo below, but it’s not visible in my final design.
Before stitching, I applied double-sided adhesive along the back long edges of my dotted rectangle, which made it easy for me to secure the ends of my embroidery floss later. I started with my darkest color of floss, threading the needle, inserting it at the bottom of the dotted rectangle, and working back and forth width-wise as you can see in the photo below. I did the same for all colors until I’d used all six that I picked out. The floss looked a bit too sparse when I stitched in each hole just once, so I decided to go back on my work, stitching twice in each hole. This also added more color, which was another thing I wanted to achieve.
3 tips for stitching:
- After creating the dotted frame, flip the frame over and line the long sides on the back with double-sided adhesive. As I mentioned above, this will allow you to secure the ends of the embroidery floss when making color changes.
- If you want to ensure that each block of color is the same size, count the number of dots along the length of your stitching rectangle. Divide that by the number of embroidery floss colors you’re using, and the result will be the number of holes to stitch for each color.
- While not totally necessary, I find that my Make Art Stay-tion makes string art cards even easier to create. The magnetic platform can be used to hold pieces of your stitched piece in place while you tie and/or secure the ends of the floss, and you don’t have to worry about losing your needle when you’re not using it because it’ll stick to the back of the magnets.
With my string panel complete, I lined the long edges on the front side with double-sided adhesive, covering the holes. Next, I placed my thick solid white frame over top, covered the back of that piece with foam tape, then mounted it all on my A2 card base.
To finish off, I embossed the little Hey Boo sentiment from the Halloween Treat Tags stamp set on Concord & 9th Mushroom cardstock, then used the Essential Hexagon die set to cut it out, along with a vellum hexagon and a slightly smaller white border hexagon. And finally, to significantly boost the cuteness factor, I added the little ghost from the same stamp set.
While I’ve created this for Halloween, you could easily adapt the design for other occasions by adding whatever critters you like and switching up the embroidery floss colors. I hope this post has inspired you to get those stitching dies out for some of your fall and holiday card making, and until next time, happy crafting! – Angela
2 Comments
ANGELA! THIS IS BOMB!!!
Thank you so much Julie!