Wooden Spool Ornaments and an Inspirational Advent Calendar Wreath

By on 1-24-2011 in Christmas Patterns, Embroidery, Vintage Patterns

These pieces were all made for the ArtForTheCreativeMind Yahoo group. The three wooden spools had a mind of their own and my muse just went with the flow. I had originally wanted all white and light blue and glittery spools, but they told me they wanted to look a bit like French vintage. So French vintage it was. I used large beads and small as well as cord and wire for the hangers, even a pipe cleaner. Some French vintage papers helped give the ‘French’ feel to them.

wooden spool ornaments

My advent calendar wreath was another piece that grew as I made it. I knew I wanted the Matryoshka dolls to be a part of it. First the pattern had to be drawn and I chose to create that in Photoshop Elements which made it easy to create the little faces. Christmas papers were used for the outfits. Finding the right size of prints became a difficult task as many of the paper’s designs were too large. I then glued them onto black card and created 25 different inspirational words instead of numbers for each December day until Christmas. These little dolls can be removed from the wreath to be used as tags at a later date.

paper doll wreathe
paper doll wreathe

Embroidered Alphabet

By on 1-24-2011 in Christmas Patterns, Embroidery, Vintage Patterns

Another wonderful alphabet to embroider from the McCall’s Christmas transfer book. This one features caps only and would be great used for monographs. A little book to hold and sort sewing machine needles would be a great gift for your quilting mixed media artist friend and would be theirs with their initial on the front cover. A special handkerchief or napkin would be pretty with this alphabet as well as gift tags made for a favourite somebody.

alphabet-1

alphabet-2

Gingham backgrounds

By on 1-24-2011 in Christmas Patterns, Embroidery, Vintage Patterns

Gingham has always been a favourite of mine. It can be ‘country’ or it can be ‘sophisticated’ depending on what else you use with it. It can have a vintage feel or a modern look. These backgrounds would be great used with photos of your kids, a picnic with added butterflies and bumble bees. The pdf document has red and green for Christmas, purple, blue and pink for Easter and for fall there is a tan and leaf green.

red gingham background

blue gingham

I’ve made several in rainbow colours. If you want the whole set you can download the pdf Rainbow Gingham Backgrounds for your scrapbooking

Cross stitch Alphabets …. for the words in your embroidery projects

By on 1-24-2011 in Christmas Patterns, Embroidery, Vintage Patterns

This alphabet was published in the McCall’s Christmas Iron On Transfers,Vol-II-1976. It is a smaller size and could be used throughout the year. Mother’s and Father’s day cards using embroidery floss, fancy recipe cards using a permanent marking pen are great ways of using these in mixed media. Little muslin samplers made into personalized ornaments and gift tags would be quick to do and give a personal touch in any season.

cross stitch alphabet