A Cute Idea for a Cross-Stitched Scene

I was poking around on Etsy recently, as I do, and I came across this cute little cross stitched scene made to go in a mint tin.

The one I saw was this seasonally appropriate ghost tin, but the designer, Murder Puffin, as of this writing has nearly 20 of these cute little projects, ranging from crytpids and aliens to gnomes and mermaids.

This is such a cute idea and would be a great way to present a tiny cross stitch world to a little kid or an older person who loves whimsy.

To go back to the ghost project in particular, this one uses 14 count fabric in black and white depending on the part of the project. It uses 23 colors and is sized to fit a regular Altoids tin. (Raise your hand if, like me, you’ve got a stack of these you’re sure you’ll find a project for some day? This just might be the project!)

On this project there is a nighttime graveyard scene that sits in the inside of the top of the tin, and a little skeleton in its coffin for the bottom. The ghost, its blanket and RIP pillow are all removable, and there’s a little piece for the top of the tin that says Beware. The skeleton and the ghost can be worked with glow in the dark embroidery floss to make them even creepier.

I love these little projects and all the details that are included, and it would be a super cute way to give a gift of cross stitch to someone. You could even still make it a little sewing kit or art kit (which is a classic Altoids tin reuse) but line the tin with cross stitch minis or other little designs. These would be fun to do for different holidays, too, and you could change out the display every month or with different holidays.

Don’t you just love it when random scrolling turns inspirational? What kind of cross stitch would you do in a mint tin?

[Photo: Murder Puffin]

If you’re someone whose favorite color is all of them, or you know someone like that (in my world it’s my daughter!) this color wheel bouquet cross stitch pattern is one you might enjoy stitching.

It’s from Works by ABC and it features a rainbow of flowers stitches around the outside, with smaller flowers on the inside and a multicolored design in the middle that could be another flower but I’m not really sure what it’s supposed to be.

The flowers are in 16 colors, and the full pattern uses 18 colors (with the addition of the green stems and the color of the petals and vines that go around the flowers).

The design is 133 by 133 stitches, which comes out to 9.5 inches square (or 24.13 cm) when worked on 14 count fabric or 28 count over two threads. The pattern listing includes sizing for other counts if you want to make the project a little smaller. The sample was actually worked on 32 count linen, which is the same as 16 count Aida and comes out to 8.3 inches/21 cm.

Despite all the colors I feel like this wouldn’t be too difficult a project to stitch because the flowers are all the same so as long as your count is right on the first one you should be able to stitch them all the same. And it’s so much more fun than a regular color wheel for an art room or to stitch for an artist in your life.

You can grab the pattern from Works By ABC on Etsy.

Something about all the colors on this one (and that the designer also has temperature cross stitch patterns, I suppose) reminds me of temperature projects. This one has too many flowers to document a year, but if you’re looking for a temperature project I’ve collected a bunch of temperature cross stitch patterns, including one by this same designer that also uses flowers. So fun!

[Photo: Works By ABC]

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