Engagement Picture vs. Portrait |
For the past month and a half, all I wanted to do was blog
about the following topic.
However, I had to keep my keys quiet because it needed to be a
surprise. More specifically, it
was to be joint birthday surprise for my brother and future (less than three
months!) sister-in-law. Because
both birthday’s are in early March, I had to wait to blog until later in the
month.
As a side note, I have
decided to refer to my future sister-in-law as my ToreSIL. I haven’t run this past her quite yet,
but it distinguishes her from my other sister-in-law when the time comes when I
can no longer call her “future sister in law”. Toresil it is.
A couple of weeks ago, I finally mailed the surprise to my
brother and Toresil and they were thrilled. Hurray.
Commence blogging! However,
it is hard to blog about something when one goes out of town for a week and
forgets to save the necessary blog pictures for the post to the laptop that was
packed. Whoops. Hopefully my weekly post wasn’t missed
too much. Actually, it probably is
worse if the missed post went unnoticed because that means no one is reading
this but Toresil, my Mom and Kerry at work… and all three of them knew I was
out of town. Sigh.
I think I like Charlie best. |
Moving on – the delayed and heavily “built up” surprise
reveal: cross-stitched family
portraits! Cross-stitching is the
new knitting – you’ve heard it here first! Great entrepreneurs sell modern and quirky (!) patterns on
Etsy and through various websites.
My favorite has to be Wee Little Stitches on Etsy. Check the store out. There also was a “how to” in a Martha Stewart Magazine about a year
ago. I decided to take on the
challenge and designed a little pixel brother, Toresil and Charlie the
dog. Since the lovely couple’s
nuptuals are right around the corner, I designed them wearing the outfits from
their save the date picture.
On its way to Chicago! |
The designing of the pattern is what took the longest. The easiest way is to block out your
stitches on graph paper. I found
out that perfecting the hair color and layout is the most important aspect of
making the pixel people recognizable.
After the design was solidified, I ran out to JoAnn Fabric’s for
embroidery floss (at 10 cents a color, it is such an economical project), an
embroidery hoop, and aida cloth.
The design stitched up quickly, which was a requirement for a project
tackled during busy season. I
would assess it as a 10-hour project.
Toresil also loves personalized and unique stationary, so I
put a picture of the cross-stitch portrait on the front of some postcards. I like to think they will have this for
years to come. Who says
cross-stitch has to be frumpy and old fashioned. I think I am hooked and plan on making more!
Phew - I'm glad I got that post off my chest. On a related note, I'm home for the weekend before going back out of town next week. Stella was pretty peeved at my absence and was wary regarding my return (see below). Who wants to tell her I'll only be home for two days?
That's it! I'm raising the drawbridge! |
What are some good gifts you have given recently?
I'm so happy to be your Toresil. We love our cross stitch family portrait so much. It's like we have little video game characters. :-)
ReplyDeleteMwah!