Brightside Layout

It's hand stitching week on the Pink Paislee blog! This is one of my favorite techniques because I love the texture it adds and gives layouts a beautiful homespun look.

To make this layout I started by having my Silhouette Cameo draw a stars frame border I designed - you can go ahead and grab this cut file for free by clicking here. I used a light blue Silhouette Sketch Pen instead of a blade and the machine quickly drew the design onto Pick-Me-Up Paper 12. Then I spent some time piercing holes around each star. There might be a faster and easier way to get the machine to do this part for me, but for now I'm happy to do it by hand :) It's therapeutic!

Next I did the actual hand stitching part. I used DMC embroidery floss, all six strands, and stitched color-on-color, meaning where the color of the background paper was pink I used pink thread, where it was blue I used blue, yellow I used yellow, so on and so forth. I took a few of the papers from Pick-Me-Up to JoAnn and found matching colors of thread so I having coordinating colors.

I spent about 8 hours hand stitching this background. I know hand stitching isn't for everybody, but as I mentioned in the beginning I LOVE the texture it adds. Plus I love a good, long craft project! Once the background was finished I used white acrylic paint to make splashes in the center. I layered my photo over the same paper as the background but it's from the 6x6 Paper Pad so it's miniature, lots of Journaling Spots & Ephemera Die Cuts, and used foam squares between the layers for dimension.

I continued adding to the cluster in the center using tiny heart Chipboard Stickers and tiny heart Stickers, flower die cuts, chipboard leaf stickers, and I fussy cut the title "Brightside" from Pick-Me-Up Paper 01. To finish I wrote journaling on a yellow striped card and tucked it under the right side where the background paper was also yellow.

I hope you are inspired to give hand stitching a try! Don't forget to grab the stars frame so you can make this layout too!

SUPPLIES: PICK-ME-UP: Paper 01, Paper 12, 6x6 Paper Pad, Chipboard Stickers, Ephemera Die Cuts, Journaling Spots, Stickers; white acrylic paint; Cut file: Stars Frame by Paige Evans; Die cut machine: Silhouette Cameo 3