In December I reviewed the second My Greeting Box, a lovely monthly box of things for making your own handmade greetings cards. Click here to see the review of the complete box. The theme for those cards was New Year, and while I’m a bit late in posting this, I wanted to show you one of the cards I made!
The main technique used for the New Year cards was embroidery, so I chose the Fireworks card, which I thought looked lovely.
Hope I could do it justice!
The first thing to do was to cut out the black card that would have the pattern embroidered on it.
It was very easy to do. The template was the same width as the black card, so I just had to cut along it.
The template would be used with the pushpin to make sewing holes in the card.
Conveniently, a small mat was included with the box, to protect your surface from the pin. I also used paperclips to make sure the template didn’t move around, as I figured I’m klutzy enough to let the template slip and not be able to line it up again!
So once the holes were made, it was time to get to the sewing part.
The beautiful silver thread had to be split into two separate strands of three thin strands each. This was really quite fiddly, not to mention threading the three strands through the needle! Fortunately the eye was pretty big, and eventually I got it done.
Now here I have to admit I made a little mistake. I’m the one in the family that always pipes up ‘RTFM‘ whenever something has instructions. But this time, I’m embarrassed to say, I didn’t actually read the instructions properly.
You needed to follow the template, using silver thread for the solid lines and gold for the dashes. I missed this bit, and embroidered the whole thing in silver first!
Oopsie. I thought it took rather a long time!
I was actually pretty pleased with how it looked, especially those knots, which were really tricky to get right.
Anyway, my mistake didn’t turn out to be a big deal, as I just went over the bits that were supposed to be gold with gold thread.
Not bad, eh?
The firework is finished, now time for the Happy New Year bit.
Cutting and attaching the vellum was pretty straightforward. The only thing I decided to do a little differently was to stick the vellum on to the card before I added the letters, as I wanted to make sure I centered them properly.
Believe it or not, I also used tweezers to stick the letters on! They were pretty small, and I thought it would be easier to place them (relatively) accurately with tweezers.
The final touch was to tie a length of gold thread around the middle of the blank card and stick the embroidered card on the front.
All done! Despite my minor cock-up with the thread, I think this turned out extremely well.
So here are some thoughts.
I enjoyed this just as much as the other two cards I’ve made! (see here and here.) I really love the colour scheme, and I think New Year cards are such a lovely idea.
This one was definitely a little more tricky, and because I did some unintentional extra sewing it took about two hours, rather longer than it should.
The instructions really are extremely clear. It was entirely my fault I overlooked the part about different threads for different lines! As long as they are read properly, they are perfectly easy to follow. And next time I’ll be double checking before I do anything!
I’ll definitely be making the other cards in this box, not least to prove that I can without making any mistakes! It was incredibly satisfying to create something like this, and I really do feel rather proud of myself. One of the great things about this subscription box is that, along with lots of extra cardstock and things, the basic designs can be adapted for other occasions.
If you’d like to have a go at making cards but have felt slightly intimidated at what it might require (I have!) then do try this subscription. It’s wonderful. Oh, and great gift for your crafty pals!
Want to read some more? You can find all the My Greeting Box posts here!
