Wednesday, November 30, 2011

2011 Buffyfest Ornament Swap!

YAY!  It's that time again for the Buffyfest 4th Annual Whedonverse Holiday Ornament Swap.  This is my third year participating.

My first go-around I carved stamps.   My second year, I played with Shrinky Dinks!

Click on the label "Buffy Ornament Swap" to see all the posts showing what ornaments I received in exchange for mine.  They're great fun.

This year, I decided to get old-school on myself.  I used to be an avid cross-stitcher.  One of my many talents, yes.  I went on Etsy and found some terrific patterns for sale  from seller "Velvet Elvii,"  so I purchased some.

I started out doing a regular old stitch.  When I was done, I looked at my work and realized it was ginormous! How was I going to make an ornament out of this huge thing?

I decided to try again, this time cutting the stitching area in half.  And this is where I killed my eyes.  I wear contacts to see far but don't need them to see close.  If I was wearing my contacts, my eyes could not focus on the teeny tiny stitching I was doing.  I would have to take my contacts out every time I decided to work on my projects.  The deadline loomed closer and closer and I actually asked the Buffyfest peeps to put me in a small group, because I was afraid I could not get these done in time.

And what did I chose to stitch?






To give you a sense of the size, here's a picture of the first one I did in the standard size along side the small one I did.  The quarter is for size reference.


teeeeeeeny stitches

Then it was time to mount them and at this, I fail.  I did not space them apart enough. Derrr!  Even with an Xacto knife, I am full o failure.  It was ugly and there was a lot of pulling of hair and gnashing of teeth.  In the end, though, I think I fared well.




I am also including some spare inch Artist Trading Cards I made with a stamp I carved, for a swap back in March.

I will be mailing these out tomorrow or Friday to the 4 other people in my group. If you're interested in really cool cross-stitch patterns, check out Velvet Elvii on Etsy.

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