How and Why to Cross Stitch on Plastic Canvas

When I teach hand stitching to kids I always start them on plastic canvas because it’s stable and sturdy, there’s no question where your needle should go because the holes are big and obvious, and you don’t need a hoop to do it (and you can even use yarn instead of embroidery floss, which is great for little hands).

But plastic canvas doesn’t have to just be for practice or when you’re learning or teaching kids how to cross stitch. There are a lot of reasons you might want to use it for projects.

Notorious Needle has a great post all about the pros and cons of using plastic canvas for cross stitch, as well as the difference between perforated plastic and plastic canvas. It has great advice on choosing from the different colors of plastic canvas, getting ready to stitch and how to actually work with plastic canvas to make your project.

There are even tips for joining pieces of plastic canvas together to make a project (like those classic stitched plastic canvas tissue boxes) and how to finish the edges for a smooth look.

I have always liked the idea of using plastic canvas for things like magnets, keychains and backpack charms, but once you start playing with it I imagine you’ll come up with lots of potential uses for it.

If you sign up for email updates you can get a free pattern for a lovely monarch butterfly stitches on plastic canvas, which is shown here.

Check out the blog post at Notorious Needle for all the details and great tips to get you started on your plastic canvas journey.

Have you ever worked cross stitch on plastic canvas before? I’d love to hear what you made and if you have any tips to help others!

[Photo: Notorious Needle]

How to Cross Stitch on Linen

How to Cross Stitch on Paper

One of the subjects that’s often covered in preschool is learning about the five senses. Understanding our senses helps us describe the world around us and our experience in it, and it’s fun to explore the senses in different ways.

Rock Your Homeschool has a great free printables pack having to do with the five senses. I love the foldable activity shown above because it emphasizes that the way we really experience our senses is through our brains. They also have a sensory scavenger hunt printable, which doesn’t include taste but has the rest of the senses included.

Of course we don’t really want kids tasting things they find outside (unless you happen to have fruit or vegetables growing nearby) but I like the way Hands on Teaching Ideas handled it by including “something an animal would eat” on their five senses scavenger hunt.

Sea of Knowledge has lots of ideas for things to do with preschoolers to learn about the five senses, as well as this free with email signup template for making a five senses craft (you could also trace the child’s hands instead of using the hands in the template if you like).

Use a potato head toy you probably already have to play a five senses game with the download from A Little Pinch of Perfect. You could do the same thing on paper with a potato (or human body) shape and color on the different sense organs.

Simple Everyday Mom has a cute set of senses puppets you can print and play with, or use for different projects and crafts.

Preschool Packets has a whole set of posts dealing with teaching the five senses (the one linked here is for hearing but the rest are linked within that post), which includes a great idea for making shakers with kids to explore the sense of hearing.

Tim’s Printables has some cute five senses printables where kids can match the image to the sense you’d use to explore it. There’s also a body to label but I think there’s only a male version.

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