Product Review: Panda Embroidery Craft Kit

I picked up this kit as an add-on item to an Amazon order I made.  It cam with the stamped fabric, well sorted 7 colors of embroidery floss, hoop (for sewing and display), needles, and an instruction sheet.

Overall it was a very simple project to do.  None of the embroidery stitches were particularly difficult - mostly straight satin stitches and a few outline stitches.  I did modify to use a type of lazy-daisy stitch for the bamboo leaves. 

The instruction sheet was mostly just helpful for determine which colors to use where.  The kit had 2 needs attached to the fabric but those broke almost immediately while I was doing the first stitching.  A second set of needles in a package was included but since every stitch in the pattern called for 6-strand thread, I was unable to use those because the eyes of the needs just weren't big enough for me to thread them.  So I ended up using other needles I had to sew the majority of the project.

I think it turned out pretty cute in the end.

Cross-Stitch: Rainbow Unicorn Astro

Inspiration: Back in May, I saw this tweet where someone posted the pixel art his wife made.  At the time, I commented that it would make a nice cross-stitch project.  I finally decided to do it myself.

Thanks, Sophia Gigliotti, for the super fun pixel challenge to kick off our @CATlabWest component team working group!

Results were hilarious, but my wife spent an hour last night making some true @salesforce astro art. I'll just post hers and say it's what we aspire to. :) pic.twitter.com/flemDs7kiz

— Zak Landrum (@zaklandrum) May 7, 2020

How I Made It: I used white 14 count Aida Cloth.  I made some minor edits to the image after printing and noted some lines where I wanted to end some white sections, but I mostly stuck to the image from the tweet.  For colors I used:

Image Color	DMC Floss
Light Green	Silvery/Blue Metallic (# unknown)
Light Gray	3072
Black	Black
Cream	Ecru
Red	321
Orange	721
Yellow	444
Aqua/Teal	913
Blue	798
Purple	552
White	White

The image I marked up:

Finished Product:

Card: Rosh HaShanah: Stitched Earth

Inspiration:  With everything that's been happening since March, I felt that my Rosh HaShanah card somehow needed to reflect the feelings of disconnect, disorder, brokenness, and small pieces of hope and repair.  I settled, in my mind, on the image of Earth and thought that with all the sewing projects I've been doing lately (including masks for my family) that an Earth being stitched back together definitely fit the times.  For the greeting, I wanted to share my own hopes that the next year brings an improvement to all we are facing from COVID-19 to racial unrest to issues of health within my own family while still sharing the good I see from friends and family who are doing their part to help - organizing support for protesters, providing safe spaces to meet online, spearheading ways to give to one another - as well as the small ways even I help - more mentoring, sharing little things I make by sending mailing to cheer others up, having my daughter make encouraging art that we put up in our picture window for our neighbors to see.

How I Made Them: I started by using a template for a circle and blue card stock.  Then I used green card stock and tried to make a bit of a silhouette of the continents from a Google-searched image.  I glued these together using Modge Podge and a paint brush.  While my Earth dried, I took the wording I put together and typed it up in a Google Doc and found a font I liked and then printed (I knew I'd be making too many of this card to want to hand write all of them).  After printing, I used colored pencils to color in and give the background of my text a rainbow-feel.  I cut out the colored text and used Permanent Crafter's Tap to affix it on the front and inside of the card.  Once the Earth was dry, I cut a zig zag down it's center.  Then I took a 2-strand piece of embroidery floss in a needle and stitched it (leaving the ends hanging off).  I used Elmer's School Glue and affixed the cut and stitched Earth to the front of my card and then a glue stick to get the floss ends sticky so I press the down on the card so they weren't just flopping around.

Card Text:

Front: As we approach this Rosh HaShanah...

Inside: we pray for guidance on the path to: healing for our entire work, repairing our relationships with one another, supporting those striving to improve all our lives, love and peace in our hearts and homes. May this year be a year of positive change and blessings.

Other Ideas:

I wanted to get my daughter to help by painting large sheets of paper with blue and green that I would then cut out circles from but she was distracted by Legos and Online School work.  I also probably could have used bigger string to make it stand out more.  I also wish I wasn't making so many so I could have hand-written then greeting so instead I'll add personal messages to those I'm sending the cards to.

More Images:

After coming up with the idea, my first step was to create a sample card and refine my text.  These 1st two images are of that sample card.

The rest of these images show a bunch of Earths before cutting and the finished inside of my card.

Cross-Stitch & Felt Sewing: More cuteness

 This past week I did some more projects from Kawaii Craft Life.  These were all in the Cross Stitching section (pages 85-117).  Per the book, some were meant to be wine glass charms or cupcake toothpick decorates but for those I chose to make them magnets.  Basically they were stitched on aida cloth, trimmed, and then glued onto felt.  I also made a couple of napkin holders and a cute little gift bag.  When I didn't have the exact color of DMC floss as listed in the project I used this DMC Color Substitute Chart to see what I did have that could work.  Overall I think they all turned out pretty cute and can't wait to send them on as gifts or maybe as some geocaching swag.

The penguin was meant to be a cupcake topper and the 4 little animal heads were supposed to be wine glass charms but I made all of these into magnets.

I think the little gift bag turned out pretty cute.  I need to make at least 3 more of the acorn napkin holder so I can use them this Thanksgiving.

These little sushi magnets are making me a little hungry.