Vintage Valentines (Embroidery on Paper)

I was going for “vintage” and ended up a little too “victorian,” but I’m still in love with the idea of embroidering on paper.

If you’re going to give it a try, I just have one huge piece of advice:

When you sew on fabric, you can bring your needle up through, and if you don’t like its placement, take it back out. The fabric will close on itself and the hole you made will disappear. (And if it doesn’t, give your fabric a little press with an iron!) With paper, that is not the case. The hole made by your needle will not close up on itself if you choose to move it. Be sure that where your needle comes up is where you really intended for that to happen! Other than that, sewing on paper is super easy and opens up a whole new world to your scrapbooking and card making arsenal of favorite techniques!

Here’s a quick wrap-up of how to make these Vintage Victorian Valentines!

Enjoy,

Nikki, In Stitches

Embroidery:

To get precise embroidery, I once again used my tissue paper transfer method, but with a twist. Did you know that tissue paper can act as carbon paper?? Here are the details:

I typed “LOVE” on my computer in American Typewriter font, size 100. (You can use whatever font and/or size you’d like.) I then held the tissue paper up to my monitor and traced “LOVE”. Flip your tissue paper over and trace “LOVE” again on the wrong side of the tissue paper. (This should give you a mirror image of “LOVE.”) Flip your tissue paper back over to the right side. Lay it on top of your scrapbook paper exactly where you’d like it placed and trace one more time. (You may have to go over it a few times.) Lift your tissue paper up, and “LOVE” will be written right there! I then embroidered right over top of each of the letters using either a back stitch or stem stitch. 

“LOVE” Frame

This is simply a Spellbinders die, Labels Four, that I cut, then embossed.

Flowers

The flowers are also a die, Build a Lilac by Sizzix, but you could use any die or punch you have in your stash. After cutting them, I chalked them. The embellishment in the center is a a Crystazzi Crystal 4mm bicone black bead, that is hand sewn to the flower.