Recent Card Making : Embroidered Thank You Cards DIY
Last month I found myself in the position of needing to send three thank you cards! (Lucky me … Ok, it was my birthday but I don’t talk about that.) Also a few posts back here I showed you the embroidered bookmark I made for an online friend to thank her for a blog give-away prize I won. Reading this you might think I am continually showered with gifts. I’m not and don’t expect to have to make any more thank you cards for a while!
Back to the embroidered bookmark. Making this sure did pique my interest in stitching on paper and now I am hooked! For this Thank You Card project I wanted to combine the textures of thread and paper cutting, while making use of pre-made supplies. Basically I took commercially manufactured cards and dressed them up, adding handmade touches.
For this first card featuring a vase with flowers in it, I embroidered the thank you message, using a computer print-out of the words as a pattern. Them I free-hand cut some heavy paper to make the rest. Sometimes what you picture in your head does not come out as intended. I got the parts all together and showed the card to Nick, who jokingly said “I like how you did the smoke-stack with flower clouds coming out of it.” Waaaa. So I added the detail on the vase and the leaves, with more embroidery on them. He was right … my vase did originally look like a smoke-stack!
For the second one, the polka-dotted base card was pretty enough on it’s own, but I thought it needed something. So I made the flower medallion to decorate it, using cut paper and some stitching. I gave it a 3d effect by curling the petals a bit.
The third card was made using a pre-made vintage thank you card, a box of which I found at a thrift store. There’s a printing blotch on all of them but even without that I don’t think I would send out one of these cards without embellishment.
I didn’t think it was very nice looking in its original state so I made a frame to put over the Thank You message and embroidered it with little flowers. My mother embroiders beautifully and taught me how to do these flowers when I was quite young and I’ve always loved making them. The petals are called lazy daisy stitches and the centre is a French knot. There are a few instructional videos on-line if you’d like to learn how to do those stitches.
So there you have it. Three ideas for using store bought cards and dressing them up yourself, to add texture and you’re own hand-made touch!
Oh yes, I almost forgot … No matter what, one can always use a little helping hand in life, right?! Or should I say in this case, ‘a helping paw’. Seconds after this shot was taken that thimble was batted halfway across the room! Oh yes, I was ever so thankful for the help.
I hope this inspires you to try out some stitching on paper and/or making your own greeting cards! Or perhaps to get a cat.
xo loulou
