Freehand Cross Stitched Card: Cross Stitching on Cards with No Dies

Hello, my friends!  I am so happy to be back posting regularly again.  Between the kids being home for summer (yay!), traveling, and the light switches shorting out in my craft room, there's been sporadic creating and no time or ability to photograph what I've made.  Luckily, the lights are back on and I've finally been able to take some pictures of what I've been working on!

With no lights in a lower-level craft room, I've found myself gravitating towards projects I could easily transport around the house without too much hassle.  Translation: LOTS of stitching has been happening!  This stitched card was directly inspired by a recent trip to the gorgeous Lake Placid region in New York.  We spent a week admiring gray clapboard farmhouses and fields of wildflowers, and this card was a result of all of these beautifully-serene surroundings.

I used one of my favorite no-die cross-stitching techniques for this card.  To start, I used a woodgrain background stamp from Hero Arts to stamp a tone-on-tone background on gray cardstock.  I then started stitching.  I created and printed out the following pattern on printer paper (sized to fit a standard A2-sized card in my computer's word processing program):

I cut out the pattern, taped it over my card base, and poked holes in all the corners where I would be stitching.  This process takes only a short while (and I find it strangely meditative).

All that was left to do was stitch!  So easy!

I finished the card with a Hello Sunshine sentiment using Simon Says Stamp's "sunshine" die.  I mounted the card on coordinating sunshine-y yellow cardstock.

I love these freehand cross-stitched cards... they are so unique and unexpected, and I love how the images "float" on the card base without any extraneous holes.  I hope you enjoyed this project and that those of you who enjoy stitching try out this really simple and easy technique.  See you soon with another stitched project!