Valentine's Day Card

Step 1: Stitched Border Valentine's Day Card

I have been wanting to do a stitched border card and Valentine's seemed like a good reason to make one. Just whipped it up today so it doesn't take too long to put all together.

Step 2: What You Need

Need a couple things to get started.

Supplies:

4 colors of embroidery floss
Cross Stitch Needle
4 by 5.5 inch slip of paper
4 by 5.5 inch greeting card
Ruler
Pencil
Tape or glue
Marker if you want to draw on it

Step 3: Draw it Out

You start off with your 4 by 5.5 inch piece of cardstock, a pencil and ruler.

You can just wing it if you want, but I decided to give myself some guides. I drew lines that were 1/4 inch from the side all the way around. Then I added 3 more lines that were each 1/8 away from each other going in.

These lines will be the back of the card.

Step 4: Stitch It

Time to grab your embroidery floss. I was able to cut off pieces that were about 24 inches long and that was plenty long enough for the outside row.

Cut off a piece and then split it in half so you have 3 strands. Thread your needle. Start from the corner and start stitching your card. I held down the string ends with just tape.

You can see from the pictures how I did. I kind of just went with it. My original plan was to perfectly measure out the stitch spacing, but I couldn't split it very nice, so I just did it.

I started each color from a different corner so that one corner wouldn't get bulky from having all the string ends in it. By starting in a different corner each time, I evenly distributed that bulkiness.

Now, just have fun with it.

Repeat with each color for each row. I went from dark on the outside to light on the inside. I also tried to alternate stitches for something fun. So if there was a stitch in the outside row, the next row in didn't have a stitch there. Check out what I mean in Photo 6 and then the photo of the completed card.