*Another Day, Another Challenge*

Happy Thursday everyone! It's a truly happy Thursday here as there are now five days without alarm clocks in my future! The kids are off school until Wednesday! WOO HOO! Gotta love PD Days (Professional Development) and Statutory holidays (Canadian Thanksgiving is on Sunday). It has been a tough week for me for getting out of bed so a few days where I can get up when I want to will be wonderful. I'm sure I'll still be awake at the butt-crack of dawn (which is about 7:30 right now) but at least there won't be some stupid piece of electronics telling me to drag my ass out of bed!

The funny thing is that Matthew who is a total bear to get out of bed in the morning, will be up earlier than his alarm clock goes off each morning so he can optimize his video game/tv watching/computer playing time. What a kid.

I was a little nervous when I saw that the challenge for this week on the Crazy 4 Challenges blog was not a sketch challenge. I really like sketch challenges. I could have decided to just not play, but instead thought I would give it a try.

I sat and thought about what images and papers I could use to do some faux stitching. I went through a few ideas but none of them screamed at me.

And then, I had a thought... I have done stitching on cards before.... just not that faux stitching or sewing machine stitching!

So I went in search of my patterns and instead found a few that were already stitched! So I grabbed one and made a card.

This is a great way to incorporate embroidery into your papercrafting.... most of the patterns are paper that you photocopy to use (although there are also brass templates you can use)... you pierce your pattern into your cardstock (I use a Pergamano tool as it has a thin needle which produces a small hole). Once you have all of your holes pierced, you follow the information on the pattern to create the stitched design. I use mostly metallic threads by Anchor. The thread on this card is an iridescent white, one of my favourites for sure!

I used a corner rounder, added some white Bazill Bling cardstock and a white sheer ribbon bow and voila!

Card stitching is a wonderful way to pass the time... I used to pierce a bunch of the patterns and then take my tape, threads and needle up to the TV with me.... kept my hands busy while we were watching TV.

I might need to pierce some patterns again....

If you're interested, you can see some of my old stitched cards in my Picasa Album. You can also take a boo at some of my older cards.... the album with the stitched cards is from 2003!