Guest Author - Michelle McVaney
Grab a needle, paper piercer and some floss and add some dimensional texture to your scrapbook pages and cards. Sewing adds another dimension of texture to your paper. As a child cross-stitching was one of my favorite hobbies.
My aunt taught me how to cross-stitch when I was very young. Since becoming addicted to scrapbooking I put away my floss and cross-stitch patterns and haven't started a new cross-stitch project since. Last year I dug out the cross-stitch box and got out my overflowing case of floss and ever since I have been adding little stitches to lots of my layouts.
Sewing on paper is a little trickier than sewing on fabric. The first thing that I struggled with was there are no little holes or squares to count on the paper! The next thing that tripped me up is that paper is not as forgiving as fabric! On paper, once you punch a hole you are committed. Keeping that in mind I have a few tips for you to get started hand sewing on your layouts.
I decide what I want to stitch and create a pattern on a piece of paper. I then make dots with a pencil of where I want to create my holes for the stitching. You can make the holes as far apart or close together as you desire. Keep in mind that the farther apart the holes, the longer the stitch will be. Next, I lay my created pattern on top of what I am going to stitch and use my needle or a paper piercer to punch the holes where I put the dots on the pattern.
With your holes punched, you are now ready to thread your needle with the appropriate color of floss and get started!
The stitch I tend to use most in my scrapbooking is the Backstitch. Here are some tips to get you going. Bring the threaded needle up through the second hole on the pattern. Adhere the piece of floss to the back being careful to not put adhesive on the other sewing holes. Next, insert the needle back through the very first hole. Now you have your first stitch! Bring the needle from the back up through the next whole away from the stitch and then push back through the hole of the first stitch. Keep repeating until you have finished your pattern. Trim off any excess floss and adhere threads to the back of the paper with your favorite adhesive.
