DIY Embroidery Wall Art

In Vancouver last year, we were in a gift store, and I saw a cushion with the following message printed on it, "you are my bucket list"... And I just thought, wow, that is beautiful. In a world where we see bucket lists as places and experiences, how beautiful is it to think that when it boils down to it, the ones you love, really are the most important thing.

And it kind of stuck with me. Especially as our wee one was growing and getting ready to be born, it kind of became truer and truer.

I had been looking for a phrase or lyric for Sophie's wall. I had so many I loved, but I decided I really loved that bucket list. I took a look at Etsy, but thought rather than buying a print I would prefer the personal touch of embroidering it. 

Here is how I went about it.

I must say at this point, that I have done heaps of cross stitch in my life. But really not a lot of embroidery. What I have done has been playing about, so this is a wee experiment..

In order to get the text a little tidier than my normal stitching, I typed out the phrase and created an image of it on my laptop. I then printed it off to use as a template. This could totally be skipped and just drawn on to your fabric. But as I said, this is a bit special to me, so I thought I would prefer a tidier font. 

After placing my fabric in the embroidery hoop, I placed the template behind the fabric, and traced on the phrase.

And then I started stitching! I chose a turpuoise thread for the phrase. I have a bunch of spare threads from old cross stitch projects, so I used some of that.

I'm not the best stitcher, but it only took 10-15 minutes to stitch the phrase.

When the phrase was all done, I figured.. It was a little empty. I considered flowers or hearts or.... hmmm I couldn't decide. In the end I decided on a wreath kind of design with some wee heart-esque flowers. I used a cd to trace a circle around the phrase.

And then at even-ish intervals I drew little wee heart things.

And again, started stitching.

After the circle was stitched, I finshed with the wee heart flowers.

And I am so, so, so happy with it! What do you think? Do you like the phrase?