Technique Thursday - Hand Stitching on Layouts

It is my turn today to post a technique tutorial at Scrap Lovers so I thought I'd post my tutorial here as well for all my blog friends.

Stitching on layouts is an inexpensive way to add some drama to a layout. It can be as simple as stitching a few x stitches, straight stitches or as seemingly complicated as stitching designs. All it takes really is a little time and maybe a little courage.

Let's start with something simple:

IMAGE REMOVED FOR PUBLICATION

Take a closer look at the flowers (click on the photo to enlarge). In each flower, I stitched along a pre-existing design on the patterned paper. I also made a straight line across my strip of patterned paper to add a little flair to an ordinary piece of paper. The results are subtle, but certainly noteworthy.

Try a Free Hand Swirl:

In this one, I wanted something more dramatic so I choose to stitch in red. I drew the swirl lightly with a pencil and then poked holes along the design. When the holes were complete, I erased the design and stitched.

Stitching a Full Blown Design:

This one is no where near as complicated as it looks. Trust me. Google clipart for whatever design you want to stitch. Here I googled spider web clip art. I printed this design and put it on top of my cardstock. I used the printed design as a template and poked holes through the template and my cardstock. This is the same technique you use when carving a pumpkin. Remove the template and sew your design. I keep the template handy in designs like this to refer to now and again. It really isn't hard at all. It just takes a little time.

Other Ideas:
-Stamp an image in the colour of your thread and stich over the image.
-Use your doodling templates as stitching templates.
-Stitch a border around your photo or title

Thanks for stopping by and be sure to link up your stitched creations!