Designer Spotlight: White Protea Art

If you like your cross stitch patterns a little bit gothic but also a little bit cute, you’re going to want to meet Etsy seller White Protea Art.

Their designs are pretty firmly on the cute side of the creepy-cute divide, but the subject matter sometimes has a bit of a dark twist.

There are ghosts, but they’re the cutest little ghosts you’ve ever seen, living their best lives in the pumpkin patch, with a Santa hat, going camping, eating watermelon or reading a book. Sometimes the ghosts are cats.

You’ll find a witch frog in a cauldron, mushrooms growing from a book, a badger enjoying pumpkin ice cream.

But there’s also just plain cute animal cross stitch patterns, such as a pair of llamas for Valentine’s Day, a watercolor axolotl and kittens decorating a Christmas tree.

Lots of the patterns are seasonal, with a heavy emphasis on fall/Halloween and Christmas. In fact, all of the shop’s nearly 70 patterns as of this writing fall into five categories: summer, autumn, spring, Halloween and Christmas.

It’s hard to pick a representative example but here you’ll see the occult bookshelf, filled with books, pumpkins, potions and a few ghostie friends.

The pattern is 84 by 96 stitches, which comes out to 6 by 6.9 inches or 15.2 by 17.4 cm on 14 count fabric. It uses 17 colors and would be perfect for your bookcase or mantle during spooky season.

These patterns are adorable and if I had the time I’d do a whole series of ghosts, or all the mushroom patterns for my daughter’s room. If you like cottage core with a twist, you’ll love these projects.

Check out their whole shop at White Protea Art on Etsy.

Have a designer you love or an Etsy shop you want to spotlight? Send me the details by clicking on “suggest a DIY” at the top of the page and filling out the form.

[Photo: White Protea Art]

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Camping Themed Cross Stitch Patterns

The designs from Bella Rose Craft look like they would be good for beginner cross stitchers and others who like relatively simple and small designs that are quick to finish for gifts or decor.

I’ll mention up front that this Etsy shop based in Indiana has no organization whatsoever. There are two categories: kits and patterns. So it’s a bit of a treasure hunt to find what you might be interested in.

As mentioned there are lots of minis and small looking projects with simple lines and minimal colors. There are holiday projects, animals, summer motifs like palm trees and beach umbrellas, a bathtub with a rubber duck, some text based designs (like hoppy spring and merry and bright), some biblical and religious designs, flowers, bunting and more.

On a site like this its difficult to pick something representative of the whole page, but I liked this bees and beehive design, so it’s the one I picked to share. This one illustrates a lot of my general points about the patterns from this shop. It’s small (2.79 by 2.57 inches, or about 7 by 6.5 cm on 14 count fabric), it looks like it’s all whole cross stitches and probably uses only six colors, and a couple of colors are only used for a handful of stitches.

Of the 300 plus cross stitch patterns available as of this writing, 140 are also available as cross stitch kits. These would be great to give as gifts if you’re trying to get someone interested in cross stitching. The kits include the pattern, fabric and floss, and you can choose to have it include a needle or not. The hoop is not included but the patterns explain what kind of hoop is shown if you want to get one to match.

So if you’re looking for cute, beginner friendly patterns for yourself or you’re trying to be a crafty enabler for someone else, check out Bella Rose Craft on Etsy.

[Photo: Bella Rose Craft]

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