It's Jennifer Larson again, here to share one final day of hand stitching on layouts. Now that we're comfortable, we're going to be brave: we're going to try free hand stitching on our pages.
It's not really free hand stitching, mind you. That would be like this Lutheran girl walking into church early and sitting in the front row. No, we'll be planning, sketching, and piercing before we stitch. Still, the design will be our own.
Here's some of the ways I add free hand stitching:
1. Stitch a trail
I like butterflies. They move a lot, sort of like my boys. When I put a butterfly, or a bee, or something that moves, on a page, I draw a path and stitch it, either a backstitch or a running stitch. Make sure you make the path loop at least once, because that's crazy fun.
2. Extend digital patterns with stitches
I made this photo collage with Photoshop Elements prehistoric (Version 3?)
and stamped flourishes on the edge. I thought it would look cool to
extend the flourishes on the the page, so I hand drew and then stitched,
linking the photo with the plants on the journaling card.
3. Make a thematic design
(Note: if you are afraid of spiders, scroll quickly down. Don't even pause.)
OK, I am scared of spiders, but this was a fun page to make. I hand drew the web and stitched it, and took the photo of myself with the page design in mind.
4. Connect two-page layouts with stitches
The sketch from Scrapbook Generation that I used for this page had the curve on the bottom of the photo mat. Since my page was about snow, I envisioned some swirls along the bottom as well. I drew them, then stitched, then added some die cut snowflakes blowing in the wind. (Note: I always use Scotch scrapbooking one-sided tape that I buy at Target to tape down the threads on the back of the page. Here I stitched to the edge along the middle, then taped that final stitch down.)
5. Create embellishments
This is another page I made using a Scrapbook Generation sketch. I hand cut the flowers from patterned paper, but they sort of blended into the background, so I hand drew some petal extensions, then stitched in white thread to make them pop. Oh, and I added some Algerian Eyes in the title O's too, because why not?
6. Follow the design and stitch
This page is about my geekiness; I mean, my license plate says DETHSTR. When I finished the basic page, I thought the bottom of the page looked a little boring, so I added some running stitches to the bottom of the zigzags. To me, these look a bit like the bullet trails in Space Invaders (remember that game?). These stitches also separate the list journaling. And then I added some Algerian Eyes, sort of the Space Invaders as they explode. Kapow!
Thank you so much for sharing this week with me. I hope you enjoy adding some stitches to your projects like I do!
