Krafted Keepsakes: A Christmas present

Thursday, 8 January 2009

A Christmas present

My cousin and I have a shared interest in all things Oriental. Over the years I have cross stitched the "Grace" oriental lady, as a special birthday present and the kimonos, individually rather than as a wall hanging. The cross stitch that I have done for my cousin is all beautifully framed (by her) and grouped together on one wall - known in the family as "Lesley's wall". I wanted to do something special for my cousin for Christmas and I came up with the idea of doing the symbols for her (see previous post - Another oriental project - this truly is the last!). However, I didn't want to make them into a tissue box cover (or anything else for that matter) but I didn't just want to wrap them in there raw state - this is what I came up with . . . .

Here we have the finished cross stitch panels.

I then took 3 pieces of A4 card, scored them in the middle. I printed the meanings of the symbols onto the card. I cut apertures (to suit the cross stitch panels) in 2 of the pieces of card and covered the cut edges of the apertures with red folded paper.

On the last piece of card I added my name, using the stamp that DH had made for me on a business trip to China! This was heat embossed with red embossing powder. For the front I made a silver embossed Chinese symbol. I added an eyelet to the front and back.

Then came the tricky part of putting it all together.