Tuesday, September 27, 2011

Gettin' Cozy!

Hi everyone! Hope you are having a fantastic day! Back in June the lovely Deb asked me to design for her company Say It With Letters. I LOVE Say It With Letters so of course I said yes! :) If you haven't heard of them, check them out here. I've done several other projects using her stuff, you can find that all here.

I was thrilled when I received her new 8" Cozy letters in the mail.

Here's what I did with them:



I used the fabulous Autumn Splendor collection from We R Memory Keepers on my letters.

Now...

Let's break it down

I started with my bare letter.



I covered it with adhesive.



I turned my letter over and laid it on the backside of the patterned paper I wanted on it.



I like to turn it over after that and use my brayer to run over it all to make sure it all gets adhered down, with no air bubbles or lumps.



Do this to each of your letters with 4 different pieces of patterned papers. :)



Depending on what adhesive you used, you may want to allow it to dry some at this stage. It's up to you...I don't always. ;)

Then I turn my letter over and I take my craft knife and cut the paper off around my letter.



Then you should have something like this:



I like to sand my edges some just to make it look smoother.



And then another thing I always like to do is paint the edges of my wood.




All of mine:



Then you have the base for your projects. You could leave it at that and it would look beautiful, but I am an embellisher. :) So I took each letter and added a few things to it.

Here are my letters embellished:



I added two chipboard photo corners. Those leaves are hand cut and stitched around, and I added a chipboard tag on top.



Wasn't this tag just perfect to use with this project? I placed it over the middle (popped up) and added ribbon.



On my z, I decided to change it up and add some patterned paper behind the wood (you can cut holes for the mounting holes on the back of the wood). Then I added another one of my leaves and some chipboard that I again popped up.



And finally, for my y I added some more chipboard photo corners. Then I wrapped some ribbon around the y, twisting and knotting. Then I printed the words for "a cozy home is a happy home", layered them on paper and popped them up on my y. :)


Now for those of you who don't know how to do a blanket stitch, I thought I would share that as well.

Blanket Stitch Around A Shape

Step 1:
Start your stitching by coming through the back.



You want to leave a tail on the backside.



Step 2:
You want to take your thread from front to back in the next hole over so it looks just like a normal stich.



Step 3:
Take your needle and go UNDER the stitch you created, like so:




The first stitch will look weird right now, but it gets fixed when you come to the end.

Step 4:

From the front, you go through the next hole, like so:




I KNOW IT STILL LOOKS WEIRD....just wait! :)

So repeat steps 2-4:




And keep repeating...





Now...when you come to the end you should have something like this:



Keep going as you've been going...






And then take your needle under the first crocked stitch you had, and now is when you will be making that look right.



And pull your two tails out.



And then you can tape them behind or tie them off. I tape. :)




And there you have it....a lot of pictures, but hopefully that all made sense.

Here's my Cozy letters for you one last time.



Thanks for stopping in today! Have a fantastic day!

16 comments:

Johanna said...

Really nice! And thanks for the tutorial, I was actually wondering HOW you had stitched those leaves :)

Julie Tucker-Wolek said...

Wowwwwwww! I loveeeeeeeee this! I love the colors! Thanks for sharing how you put it together! :):):):):):):)

Christy said...

I totally had to pin this because I have always wondered how to make that stitch!!! I think even *I* could handle this and I can't even sew a button on right! LOL

Anonymous said...

Super cute tutorial! Thanks for sharing.

Jingle said...

Super cute!!!!

Lisa Rukin Swift said...

Wow, this is fantastic! Love all of the details!

Mary Pat Siehl said...

this is sooo awesome

betsy (pharmgirl) said...

what a great post pamela! love the project and thanks tons for the stitch tutorial!

Christina said...

Oh my gosh this is soooo flipping cute!
And thank you so very much for the sewing lesson-much appreciated!

Connie Mercer said...

great post~adorable!!!

Elisa K said...

ohhhh this is so cute... i love it.. Thanks for sharing and reminding me that I need a brayer.. lol

Ursula Schneider said...

this looks fabulous! and blanket stitch may be my all time fave

Christa said...

Very pretty! Love the stitching!

Becky said...

Oh I love these! What a great word too. Love the feelings it evokes, ya know? Awesome. Great tutorial too!

Tracy said...

What a fun and pretty project.
I really like the embellishments you added.

Scrap for Joy said...

I love the way you decorated your letters (Did you realize that we both chose the same paper line for our projects..WeR really rocked it with their autumn line!Your touches are all great...I never would have thought to extend the paper beyond the letter but I love the look. I have bookmarked your tutorial on the stitching...great!
Here's to more fun projects!!
xoxo
Joyce