Doctor Who - TARDIS Cross Stitch

In July, I made a cross stitch of one of my favorite things... the TARDIS from the BBC's Doctor Who.  Earlier in the year, I started watching Doctor Who because I wanted to see why people kept posting it on 9gag and Buzzfeed. I started out watching the first episode of the 9th Doctor. And after watching a few episodes, I fell completely in love with the program. Once I watched all the modern episodes I decided to make a cross stitch of the TARDIS. The TARDIS wasn't too hard to come up with a pattern but I wanted something more. I wanted to put wibbly wobbly timey wimey on it. But I couldn't figure out where it would look best. Then I happened on a site that makes Gallifreyan symbols. I started looking at those and I picked the one I liked the most and started designing that one. But then I realized it was the design from the Master's ring! So I then decided to go with the Gallifreyan writing that is presumed to be the Doctor's name. It took a while but I managed to make what I think is pretty much the best cross stitch pattern ever :) I have uploaded the pattern on Etsy, just in time for the 50th Anniversary special:)

TARDIS with the Doctor's name

You can buy the cross stitch pattern here ---> https://www.etsy.com/listing/169744618/tardis-doctor-who-cross-stitch-pattern and for a limited amount of time you can get it 50% off by using the coupon code "DOCTORWHO50TH"!!!!!

Etsy Shop

I am pleased to announce that I finally have an Etsy shop. Right now I only have one item. But since it's a digital download, I will never run out. It's a religious item so I don't think that it will be extremely popular but since the software I'm using will only let me do one color at a time, it's the only pattern I had that only required one color. But here's the link and you can check it out :)

http://www.etsy.com/shop/MissKaysShop

My First Etsy Item

A Bit of a Change to this Blog

Dear Readers of The Misadventures of Miss Kay,

After contemplating it for some time, I have decided to remove posts that are very personal to me and put them on a separate and private blog and only have them available to friends and family members. Besides, I'm sure the general public at large has no interest in reading a 1,412 word description of my wedding day.

This blog will continue to be my place for posting Do It Yourself: Arts & Crafts posts and other professional postings.

Thanks All!
-Miss Kay

DIY - Magnetic Jewelry Board

The first thing you are going to need is a piece of sheet metal. The size of the metal doesn't matter but for this project I used a 12"x 24" piece of sheet metal I bought from Home Depot.

Once you have your metal you are going to want to drill some holes in it so you can loop through some thing (i.e. ribbon) in order to hang it. I would suggest watching this helpful video before whipping out your drill and damaging the metal, your table, or yourself. 

I drilled 1/4" hole 1" down and 2" in from both top corners of the sheet metal.

I decided to cover the edges of the sheet metal in ribbon because a) it makes a nice border and b) the edges are sharp. I used 1 1/2" ribbon you can buy at any craft store. I used a cheap sponge brush and applied a thin layer of glue to the top edge of the metal about 1" in width. I then pressed down the ribbon on the glue so that 1" was over the metal and 1/2" was over the edge. I then flipped the metal over and applied glue to the remaining 1/2" of ribbon and folded it over onto the back of the metal.

Then I cut two pieces of smaller 1/4" ribbon approximately 16" in length and folded them in half. I then attached the smaller ribbon to the metal by using a Lark's Head knot through the two holes I had previously drilled. I secured the two loose ends of each ribbon by sewing them together. 

          

I need to some magnetic hooks to hang my jewelry on and try as I might, I couldn't find small cheap magnetic hooks. So I decided to make magnetic hooks myself. I used 1/2"x 1/8" disc neodymium magnets, 20 gauge crafting wire, buttons (2 not 4 holes), and E6000 industrial strength adhesive. 

First I cut a piece of wire about 3" long.

Then I bent the wire in half.

Then I formed the folded end into a hook.

Then I put the two ends of the wire through the button holes and crimped the wire down onto the back of the button. 

Then I put glue on the back of the button.

Then I placed the magnet on the back of the button. 

Set the magnetic hook off to the side and at least 4 to 5 inches away from other magnets. Because the magnets are so strong they will snap together quickly and you will get glue all over your fingers trying to get them back apart. After I let the glue dry and set (approximately 24 hours), I had the perfect magnetic button hook :)

Now that you are finished with all the different components, it's time to hang it on the wall. I used some 3M Command hooks. Make sure they are strong and can hold a good deal of weight. I had to replace the clear adhesive backing on these hooks with stronger opaque adhesive backing and so painted the clear hooks silver.  Place the hooks on your wall where you plan on hanging you magnetic board. Hang your board and all your jewelry on the button hooks.  I used a bit of ribbon and some cross-stitch fabric to make an earring holder which I also hung on the hooks as you can see in the bottom left corner.   

And voilà, you're done! 

P.S. If you decided to make one, then I would love to see some pictures. Tell me what you think and leave a comment :)

DIY - Cross-Stitch Sleeping Mask

First thing you need to make your own cross-stitch pattern is get some graphing paper. Then just draw whatever you want to cross-stitch on the graph paper. Don't worry about making it match up with lines or anything. (This drawing is scaled down to half the sized of what the pattern is going to be.)

 Once your picture is finished, you want to put in some guide lines.... since this is half scale, the guide lines are every five squares.  It makes it much easier when you then re-draw you picture on to the next piece of graphing paper. Before you transfer the pattern on the next piece of graph paper, you'll want to draw guide lines on it. This time I drew the guidelines ever ten squares so each square coordinates with a square on the fabric. When drawing you want to make sure that your lines are either straight or diagonal on the graph lines so that when you use the pattern to cross-stitch

 Color your picture and then start making your design. I also use thin thread to represent the guidelines on the fabric. I utilized a lot of dark colors for borders and lighter colors for the rest of the area.

As you can see the lines are all straight or diagonal. It is almost like making a picture very pixelated. Then each square you stitch is a pixel. 

 Once you have finished, you can remove the thread guidelines. I then used my pattern to stitch the backing fabric.

 Then I sewed on a elastic and biased tape, to cover the edges.

 ALL DONE :D