Gettin' My Craft On!: Cross

Loved the above pic I saw on Pinterest! How pretty and easy is that!! As an rv'er, we try to stay away from heavy decos, so I immediately started thinking of lighter-weight wood. I didn't really want to by wood, saw, stain, etc. So I made a trip to Goodwill and found some thin, plaque-like pieces with kitcheny pics on them.

see? much thinner

I pulled of the pix that I could and painted over with a metallic gold. (Laura's wedding kinda turned me on to gold). They dried pretty fast, but I let them sit overnight before adding the fabric.

I used 2 strips of fabric. (the fabric I used was some I already had) Tho, I cut them the same width, I didn't do any hemming. Just left raw edges. I glued them to the back with Tacky Glue. I let that dry before shaping the cross. One thing I was excited about in using these plaques from Goodwill, is that they already had holes in the back for hanging. What I didn't think about was that the holes would be covered up by the fab. So I'll either have to punch a hole in the fabric where the hanging hole is, put and adhesive hanger on the back, use a little easel for display, or simply lean up against something like the pic above.

For shaping the cross, I simply used an embroidery needle and thread. I didn't actually stitch anything, I just used the big needle to give me something to grab as I put the thread under the fabric. First I glued both pieces, let dry, then tied the thread around each strip to gather where I wanted it to gather. I quickly learned that it's easier to glue ONE strip, let dry, tie, then glue the other strip and repeat.

just free hand cutting: my motto: it doesn't have to be perfect!

pull wire to make gathers -- just hang onto other end so it doesn't come out

I googled how to make a scalloped flower out of wire ribbon. Super easy. You can also do the exact same thing with non-wire ribbon by using a needle an thread, make wide stitches and don't tie at ends.

the 2 at the bottom have the flowers

Once I gather the flower, I used dabs of hot glue as I twirled it into a flower. I hot glued the flowers or buttons or other embellishments onto the cross and let dry.

I found blingy embellishments at the craft stores in the jewelry-making area. I also used some sparkly Christmas florals which only cost about a dollar. I cut off what I needed to use and still have some left over to stick in a vase.

The ones that inspired me from Facebook are actually for sale on Etsy. No instructions included since they are for sale, so I had to wing it and figure things out for myself.

I LOVE how these turned out! I enjoy giving hand-crafted Christmas gifts to my peeps. Super excited to share these! I'll probably be making more of these in the future. David got some better pix for me below: