Needle Free Embroidery

Hi, Tara here today in a rare mid-week appearance as Kate is taking a day off but don't worry she'll be back next week with her usual stunning creations.

I thought I'd take the opportunity to have a quick play with the new release from Neat and Tangled as I really love cross stitch so was very excited when they brought out a hand stitched stamp set to pair with the fabulous Hoop die.  The hoop is unfortunately still out of stock as there was a manufacturing issue with it - the problem with dies is there is only ONE manufacturer in the whole of the USA so everyone uses the same place and therefore getting "rush" jobs through is never easy as they are always busy.   Rest assured though I will get it back as soon as I can as I have some lovely projects made with it I'm dying to share with you!    For now though here are a couple of cards made just with the stamps instead which are just as fun as the dies!

For this one I stamped the hoop and added some shading with copics and then just arranged the stitched stamps inside for a quick mini card.

For this one I used the jumbo peek-a-boo dies from My Favorite Things to create a frame and then used a selective inking technique to ink the flowers and leaves in different colours.  I love that the stamp has French knots as I could never master those in embroidery - they always came out on the back of my fabric!   So I used a lot of them here as stamping them is much easier!   I hand drew the stitched border around the edge.