sew much sewing!

today's card has lots and lots of machine stitching, both decorative (as an accent around the border) and practical (to hold the chipboard letters in place on top of lace trim); not to mention a bit of handstitching with embroidery floss (the fanciful butterfly trail):

people sometimes ask me if there is a trick to handstitching on cards and there isn't really, aside from the fact that you DEFINITELY need to make your holes beforehand. i use the good old heidi swapp petite paper piercer-- which is also the first thing i'd grab if a burglar broke in, that thing is SHARP!--and work on top of an old mouse mat to protect my tabletop. i usually draw very lightly in pencil where i think i'd like to stitch, and when i'm happy with the design i poke my holes (as evenly spaced as possible), erase the pencil marks, and then get sewing. on this card i've used all 6 strands of DMC embroidery floss, for maximum impact. i nearly always use backstitch (& did so here), but holbein stitch is completely BRILLIANT for situations in which the back of your work will also be visible; for example...working on a transparency, where the combination of old-fashioned stitching and ultra-modern acrylic are--in my opinion--rather awesome!

everything you see above (except the floss) came from october's pixie dust paperie kit, FALL IN LOVE! there are more photos on the pixie blog...including one of the piece of packaging (!!!) i used as part of my card's frame!