Glass Flowers Could Solve My Problems

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I love gardening. I love growing things. I love to be outside working in the dirt. But, alas, for the last 11 years of my life I have lived in the middle of the desert. Not only does that mean that anything that you plant to survive probably has some type of sticky substance or needles on it but also that the soil is hard, dry and just not very workable. Did I mention that it’s so hot that flowers don’t survive?

Today I was waking up with my cup of coffee and Google reader and came up on this post by Atlantic Art Glass. They spoke of their garden/yard a little differently, as being overgrown but seeing their beautiful glass flowers I thought, well, I might just have to settle for glass beauty around me instead of the real blooming, flowering garden variety.

It could be worse. I could have a huge lawn to mow.

I’ve done embroidery on paper before and it’s a lot of fun. You can use a needle to punch out a particular shape to stitch, or my favorite thing is to take a copy of an old photograph or a page from a magazine and add stitched details to the original picture.

One thing I haven’t tried but would also be fun to do is cross stitching on paper.

This is a technique that requires a fair amount of preparation because you need to find a pattern you can easily transfer and print it at actual size, then use the pattern itself to help you decide where to put the holes in your paper. And then after all that you can do your stitching.

It’s a pretty straightforward process, but Crewel Ghoul has a great tutorial that walks you through how to do it step by step. It even includes a sample pattern you can print out and try for practice.

The post also has tips for starting and finishing your threads so that the back looks as neat as it can, if that’s something that’s important to you. (When I have done embroidery on paper I usually just tape the thread end to the back. If the back were going to show I’d probably just cover it with more paper.)

Stitching on paper is a fun way to make bookmarks or greeting cards, but you also need to make sure your paper is thick enough to support the holes you’ll be making in it. This post has a good rundown of materials you’ll need and what kind of paper is best. She used watercolor paper but I’ve used card stock and scrapbook paper that was a little thicker than the average printer paper.

You can always test a little on the paper you’re considering to make sure it will stand up to the project.

Check out the post, which includes a video, over at Crewel Ghoul for more tips for cross stitching on paper. Is this something you’ve tried before? I’d love to hear about it!

[Photo: Crewel Ghoul]

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