Santa's House finished ......again and digital scrapbooking.

Hi everyone, I have now completed Santa's House for the second time, yay!!!!

I am so pleased at the way it is looking on this grey fabric. (more photos below)  I have just started  to stitch Poinsettia Place which is the next house in this design.

As you can see I have been playing around with the My Memories Software package to create the pictures, I am hoping to do this on all of the Santa's Village Designs so that I can put them on a nice collage in December.  

  

In this post I will be giving some tips and showing you what you can do with the software, in particular I will show a nice Fry Box that has been designed by My Memories and edited into a Valentine Box by me, it is so easy to edit the templates.

Craft room update

I have just received the news that my fitter can start work on my new craft room in March ........yay!!! 

I am so excited about this, I have wanted to get the this room sorted for a couple of years now, I can finally get all of my things neatly away. It is basically kitchen units which I think will be perfect for a craft room, I was initially going to do the room in shabby chic furniture, however the room is not very big and I thought I would get more use out of the room using fitted furniture. I have chosen white for the units and a lovely pale grey paint for the walls, there will be glass fronted cupboards with LED lighting inside and lights under the wall mounted units too.

My crafting has been on a go slow of late but once I get my new room fitted I will be crafting like crazy, I have lots of new ideas for giveaways too, it will be such fun!  

The one thing I will promise myself is that I am going to finish all of my unfinished stitchng, I never used to have half finished projects, I was basically a one project at a time girl but since I started blogging I have stuff everywhere,  it is my New Years resolution to do one thing at once from now on.   Mmmmm, lets see how long that lasts!

If you wish to know what I used to edit the photos keep reading below.

My Memories Digital software

My Memories are really good at giving lots of freebies, I am sure you will all know by now I do love a freebie! Initially I did not realize that I could edit these designs myself using the software kits I already had, so I decided because Valentines Day is nearly upon us I would make a Valentine box using the template that was provided free (only free until 25th Feb)on the My Memories Suite blog, all of the designs below are available. 

I found a tutorial that explained how to edit the template and after a very short period of time I was designing my own little Valentine box.   

This is a screen shot of the box once I uploaded the template.  

Here is another, it includes the papers and elements for you to use in another design. 

And another...............;

Here is the little Valentine Box I designed using the software, I followed the tutorial for changing the template papers and embellishments and hey presto! I would have printed this and put it together but my printer needs some more ink. It looks very pretty don't you think? 

There are so many templates for boxes, calenders, etc that you can get from their site,  it is great fun!   

Here are a couple of links for you to check out what the software allows you to do.

Link to video showing a general overview 

Link to Fry Box instructions

How to make a custom header for your blog

If you use this code to purchase My Memories Digital software you will get $10 off the software and a $10 coupon to spend in the store, just add the code below to the promotion offer box in the add to cart on the My Memories Software page.

Code is:

STMMMS44238 



Until next time, Happy Stitching!

Country Cottage Needlework Santas Village

Hi everyone, thankyou for all of your lovely comments on my previous post, I see there are a lot of Country Cottage Needlework fans out there!

I have made quite a bit of progress on the repeat stitching on the first Santa's House, since taking this photo I have done quite a bit more stitching. I am glad I decided to change the fabric, it is so much easier to handle than the Permin Linen and I particularly love this soft grey colour.

I will soon have this one finished, then I can start the second house, it is a lovely design and I am really looking forward to stitching it.

Craft Room news   

I have now got a date set for my craft room to be fitted out - Yay!!! The plans have been drawn up and I am just choosing the cabinets and the door fronts, some will have glass doors with lighting to display some of my finished stitching. Look out for the posts on this as I will be showing pictures on its progress and I may even show you a video tour!

Happy Stitching until next time!

Santa's Village finished........however!!!!!!!

Hi everyone, the first Santa's House is finished of the Country Cottage Needleworks Santa's Village, however, I am not happy with it, my first reason, I don't like the fabric and the second reason, I stitched it too close to the edge, only one thing for it, I have to change the fabric and start again! Aggghhh!

You know when you are simply just not happy with something and you know that feeling will just not go away until you do something about it? 

It is my own fault, I know I do not like stitching on this particular lambswool  linen (Permin) but I thought I would follow what the pattern suggested, anyway, I changed my mind and ordered my favourite stitching fabric, 32 count Murano linen, it is a pale grey and I simply love using this stuff! It arrived today, so hopefully I should be starting again this evening.

If I had seen the post on the Country Cottage Needlework blog here first  I may not have made the mistake with the size of the material, I basically tried to guess and did not realise that the houses were stitched very close to each other.   

The next pattern has already arrived so I need to get a stitch on! I think the third pattern is out already but I am pacing myself with this and intend to do one a month, mmmm, well two in February and one in March!lol   

This is a close up photo of the Pale Grey Murano Linen, I love the evenweave of this fabric, all very neat!  

Getting ready to measure and away I go!

Hope to have some stitching done on this very soon!

Until next time Happy Stitching!

Progress on Santa's Village design by Country Cottage Needleworks

Hi everyone, here is my progress on Santas Village, this is the first of 12 matching cross stitch designs by Country Cottage Needleworks, there are 12 patterns to stitch, one each month until December 2013.

I purchased the Auto ship from The Patchwork Rabbit , you pay for each pattern when it is shipped every month, you can order the matching threads and the buttons or just buy the patterns, its your choice. 

If you order from there just let them know I sent you, I am not an affiliate for their shop but like to support where I can.   

You can choose to stitch all the twelve patterns on one piece of fabric, as I have, or stitch them individually.

I chose to stitch  this on the 32 count lambswool permin linen as advised on the pattern, if you would like to see a beginners tutorial showing how to stitch 2 over 2 you are welcome to pop over to my tutorials blog here 

I have a couple of free Valentine Patterns that are not quite ready yet,  I was hoping to do them today but did not have chance. 

I am off to do some more stitching on Santa's Village. 

Happy stitching!

  

My 2012 cross stitch finishes and a cross stitch Biscornu finish.

What's new for 2013?

Hi everyone, here are my cross stitch and stitchery finishes for 2012. I did not get much finishing done on the stitcheries, I cannot get easy access to my sewing machine as it is under a pile of stuff in my craft room. I am hoping to get my craft room fitted out this year. 

I had a plan to get this done by the end of February and get it all organised but it is not looking good at the moment. My craft room is so untidy, I have nowhere to put things away, it really drives me nuts having stuff all over the place.! At least I will be getting a new sewing table to house my sewing machine, it will be so nice to have a permanent place  for it after all these years.

Plans for 2013.

What plans have  I got for my blog in 2013? Well, one of my new ventures will be guest blogging, I have asked a couple of well known stitchers from the stitching world to do a guest post on my blog and I am delighted that they have said yes. One of my guests is a cross stitch blogger who is well known in the Cross Stitch Blog community and is a wonderful stitcher and creator, I am not going to tell you who it is, you will have to wait and see! My other guest is also a well known crafter who designs her own patterns and creates some wonderful things too -  I am looking forward to planning these over the next few months. 

Giveaways is another item on the agenda, I did not get around to doing as much as I would have liked last year but I have one or two nice ideas for giveaways that I am sure you will love. Some of you will know I love making small polymer clay items to add to my giveaways, I have got some ideas to include in my next giveaway, just keep a look out for those.   

I will also be designing more free cross stitch patterns, I have one or two small Valentine cross stitch designs that will be published soon.

Biscornu for The World Of Cross Stitching Magazine

I made this Biscornu for The World Of Cross Stitching, it was published in their special subscribers edition and I forgot to show it on my blog, I have the cross stitch design somewhere in my computer, when I find it I will publish it on my blog for you to have access to it. 

Close up of the beading.

You can see a tutorial for making a Biscornu on my tutorials blog  here .

Stitcheries 

Welcome to all of my new followers and regular readers!

Happy stitching until next time.

  

Happy New Year, progress on cross stitching and digital scrapbooking.

Hi everyone, Happy New Year to you all!

Apologies for the delay, I have been too busy to update my blog, but I have been doing some stitching. 

In this post I am going to show you my recent cross stitching project and my digital software that I have been using to edit my photos, create scrapbook pages, blog headers and buttons for my blog. I am hoping to put some tutorials together over the next few months to show what you can do with this great software.

My Home Sweet Home Cross Stitch Pattern

This cross stitch is my new Home Sweet Home Pattern that I designed, I always like to stitch my own designs to see how they look on fabric, this is my progress so far, I have not attached the beads to the centre of each flower yet but hopefully I should finish this in the next few days.

I have designed this pattern in a pale blue and green and also a red and green, I thought it looked very Christmasy in the red and green palette,- see pictures below.

The pattern is available in my shop or you can always email me if you have any queries. 

My 2012 cross stitch finishes.

I am hoping to put together a photo collage of my 2012 cross stitch and stitchery finishes over the next few weeks, I did not do as much stitching as I would have liked in 2012 but I am looking forward to catching up this year!   

 Progress so far.

 And now for something different!

My Memories Digital Scrapbooking

Happy New Year picture (top of this post).

I have been playing around with a scrapbook software called My Memories Digital Scrapbooking, I just love it! You can use it for making blog headers, blog buttons and scrapbooking, I am going to certainly be using it for my blog photos in the future. You can edit all of your photos with this digital scrapbooking software and make lovely scrapbook pages, phootobooks, calenders, greeting cards, DVD with sound and video, school reports etc. I have posted a couple of sample scrapbook pages below to give you an idea what you can do with it, there is also a link to a couple of My Memory Suite videos to give you more info. 

This photo page is already designed, all you have to do is upload the pictures in the My Memories Software and insert them into your album, its really easy, well it must be if I can do it! 

This page is part of a Christmas Kit that I purchased from My Memories, it includes all of the elements and lots of different pages to play with, you can put individual elements on blank pages to design your own or use their quick pages like this one.

These photos were taken in about 2010, it was -10 degrees and I was absolutely freezing, hence my face being covered. I wore over trousers, a fleece under my jacket and a cardigan and I was still  cold! It is not usually that cold where I live, (in the UK) but it was that year! 

     

 Here  is another sample page, I did not include a photo just so that you can see the blank page as it is, I did not do anything with this page, I just uploaded it.

So pretty don't you think?

The designer is Katie at Just So Scrappy, you can see the Noel Kit here  when you are on the page just click on each picture to see the detail. 

You can design your own digital albums then send them away (via the internet) to be printed into a lovely photo album and delivered back to your door, I can't wait to build my first album using this software. Check out the videos below to see what you can do with My Memories, the first one gives a quick overview in 2 minutes and the second one is 10 minutes in length to give you more detail about My Memories Suite software.

If you use this code to purchase My Memories Digital software you will get $10 off the software and a $10 coupon to spend in the store, just add this code to the promotion offer box in the add to cart on the My Memories Software page.

Code is:

STMMMS44238 



Until next time Happy Stitching and photo editing!

Pretty floral cross stitch design work in progress

Hi everyone, I started stitching one of my new designs this week, I thought I would stitch it in my favourite colour palette of pink and green. Whilst stitching I decided to make a necklace from one of the flowers. I have not attached the beads on the flowers yet, I just placed them to get an idea how the completed design would look.



 

 





 Please note: I am unable to access my computer until January, therefore I have disabled comments temporarily on the remaining posts for this year, I will resume commenting in 2013, this and other posts are set automatically.

Comments are now open


Until next time Happy Stitching! 



Santa's on his way!

Hi everyone, here is my latest stitchery, it is a free design from Bronwyns Blog over at Red Brolly, she really has some gorgeous freebies on her blog. I downloaded this Santa design and these three others, I think they are all so cute! The Santa design has been stitched using wadding in between the top fabric and the base fabric to give it a quilted look.

I traced the design using this fine tip pen that works beautifully on fabric, (see photo below) it is a permanent marker.

Apologies for the pictures, they are a little blurred.

 

 



 Please note: I am unable to access my computer until January, therefore I have disabled comments temporarily on the remaining posts for this year, I will resume commenting in 2013, this and other posts are set automatically.

Comments now open

My next post is set for Sunday 23rd December, I will show my new Home Sweet Home cross stitch design and a cross stitch necklace.

  Until next time - Happy Stitching!

 

Country Cottage Needlework - Santa's Village

 

 

Hi everyone, look what arrived in the post, one of my favourite pattern designers have created this lovely cross stitch design called Santa's Village.  

I am looking forward to stitching this Country Cottage Needlework , I ordered the full set of these patterns from The Patchwork Rabbit, one will be delivered every month until December 2103.

I ordered the fabric large enough to stitch them all on one piece of fabric, although you can stitch them separately if you wish. DMC threads  are used together with speciality threads and a pretty little button is added to the mix every month. You have no idea what the other designs look like until they arrive, it is a real Christmas Surprise!

 

Please note: I am unable to access my computer until January, therefore I have disabled comments temporarily on the remaining posts for this year, I will resume commenting in 2013, This and other posts are set automatically.     

Comments for this post are now open.

 

 

Happy Stitching - until next time!



Cross stitched box finally finished!

 

 



 

Hi everyone, I have finally finished the cross stitched Peacock Box - at last! 

You can see how to make a box like this if you check out my tutorials blog.

The pattern details can be found in this previous post

 

I have posted lots of pictures below.

 

 

 

 

 

Of course you know I love those Swarovski crystals!

 

 

I used DMC thread to make the cord for a  perfect match. 

 

I was going to put separate compartments in this but decided against the idea - perhaps next time. 

 

 

 

 

 

Last but not least, a bottlecap pincushion trimmed with Mill Hill beads.

 

Happy stitching everyone - until next time!