It’s easy as pie (actually much easier than pie) to decorate the forms. Just use straight pins. You can use pins with small heads and hide them, or you can use decorative ones like these and match the colors to your designs.

Just push the pin through the design into the form like so, and continue to cover the form.

The poinsettias come in several sizes which you can use to good effect for various shapes. For this tree, the sizes were graduated.

Another way to simplify decorating with your embroidered flowers is to use inexpensive fakes for filler and place your own flowers strategically around the outer part of the bouquet. This gives you a nice full bouquet without having to make a ton of flowers and leaves.

The smallest poinsettia can be used as a festive earring. It can be used in the ordinary way with french hooks and the like, or use a stud earring through the loop as shown here.

You could even use a dangle earring with post and clutch.

The bouquet and topiary ideas can be adapted for our 3D butterflies and flowers in the Springtime.

If you have flameless candles you can decorate them and light them, too. If you use washable glue, the decorations will be removable, so you can decorate the same candle with something different every season. Place poinsettias singly as shown or in a ring around the candle, or scatter smaller ones.

All our designs are available on our website at http://www.k-lace.com.

We hope you have had fun with Criswell designs this season and wish you all very happy holidays and a wonderful new year.

]]> http://blog.klace.com/2009/12/easy-decorating-with-3d-k-lace-designs/feed/ 4 http://blog.klace.com/2009/10/get-glowing/ http://blog.klace.com/2009/10/get-glowing/#comments Fri, 16 Oct 2009 23:15:04 +0000 kae http://blog.klace.com/?p=77 Our Designs:  http://www.k-lace.com

Maybe you’d like to decorate some outdoor areas without the need for electrical cords. You can make ornaments that show up at night by using glow-in-the-dark thread. Being polyester, this thread stands up well to the elements.

Glow-in-the-dark thread comes in various pastel colors. In the dark, most of these threads have a similar greenish glow. White glows the brightest. Be sure when choosing your thread that it is soft amd 40-wt. Some glow-in-the-dark threads are thinner and wirey and unsuitable for most digitized designs. However, there are newer threads which are 40-wt. poly and look very nice even for lace ornaments. Among these are Moonglow by Robison Anton, NiteLite Extra Glow by Superior Threads, and Coats Glow by Coats & Clark. Please check with your local dealer or do an internet search to find these threads.

Many Criswell ornament designs are suitable for this thread, but if you use ones which call for organza and use either sparkly fabric or Angelina fibers, your ornaments will sparkle in the sun by day and glow gently by night.

Synthetic fabrics will hold up outdoors, but colors could fade in sunlight over time. Any ornament might succumb to elements given enough time, but for the limited time of holiday use, they should hold up well. You can gently wash the ornaments when you bring them in after the holidays.

This photo shows two-layer snowflakes for big hoop hung with push pins on a lattice trellis.

Here you can see that they show up in the dark. Expect a subtle effect, not bright lighting.

For windows there are a few options. You can stick them on a window using poster putty. A dot of it at the top is not too obtrusive when viewing from inside. Or hang them using these suction-cup hangers either inside or outside.

The nice thing about the two-layer designs is that they look nice from either side with light shining through. These snowflakes are hung on the outside and viewed from inside.

If you put them on the inside of your window you have the option of using a clear washable glue, such as Elmers Washable School glue in gel formula, to hold them on the window. This can be used outside, too, but it’s possible a hard rain would bring the ornaments down (I tested mine in drizzle, but not a downpour). If your window is sheltered or you live in a dry climate, you may wish to use glue, since it is essentially invisible.

Keep in mind, if your ornaments are made with Angelina fibers, do not glue the fiber area to anything except glass. Our ornaments came off the glass without damage, but if glued to any other surface, such as metal or plastic, the fibers may tear when you try to remove them. If you do glue the Angelina fibers to something, decide you want to remove the ornament later and it doesn’t easily detach, you can use water to dissolve the glue without harming the ornament.

You may want to try hanging glowy ornaments on shrubbery, tree branches, trellises or other ornamental structures in darker areas of your yard.

You can also add some extra fun to Halloween decorating with glow-in-the-dark thread.

You could stitch this cat design (E143) using glow-in-the-dark thread for color two, which makes the eyes glow. Or this pumpkin (E146) using glow-in-the-dark thread for color three, as shown here. These can also be useful indoors for party decorations. Both designs shown here are from our Fall Decor collection (E150).

For Christmas there are many options among Criswell designs. The big-hoop ornaments, such as the two-layer snowflakes for big hoop (E327) that we used above, are a good choice for showing up well outdoors.

These threads recharge with any light source. Some brands glow longer than others. Check the product description for this information.

Whether you opt to use glow-in-the-dark thread or not, you can have fun using your embroidery outdoors as well as in.

Happy Stitching!

Kae Barron

Welcome to our new blog — We’re so glad you’re here! Before we begin, we want to make clear that the products we will discuss along the way are simply products we use and think our customers will enjoy using in conjunction with our designs. We do not sell the products, nor are we affiliated with any manufacturers, companies or brands. We want to thank Therese at Barnes North Sewing in North Olmstead, OH for mentioning Angelina fibers and films to us because they are really fun to use. You’ll be able to add variety and sparkle to your holiday stitching with these nifty products. The  fibers come in two types, smooth and crimped, and each type comes in many colors. Both the fibers  and films bond to themselves and each other, but not to anything else. So it’s easy to create a  meshy sheet from the fibers in the following way. Place the fibers between two sheets of paper,  teflon pressing sheets, fabric or even lace. Angelina fibers and sheets will take on the texture of  the material they are pressed against. Check with your local sewing machine dealer or Google  Angelina Fibers to find sources for them.

This picture shows the packaged fiber and a roll of film along with sheets I created by pressing them between two layers of cotton fabric. You can see how the colors change.

Once you have created a sheet of “fabric” by bonding the fibers together, this sheet can be substituted for fabric in our designs which call for organza fabric. The *fabric* created with Angelina is  very sparkly and iridescent. It looks delicate, but this fabric is quite tough enough to use as fabric in our organza designs. As long as the fibers have been bonded together, the sheet will remain intact when it’s stitched on, and will not be harmed when the designs are soaked to remove stabilizer.

In making your “fabric” you can use bits of Angelina film mixed with the fiber, or you can use the film alone. Heating the film makes it change color and become iridescent. But don’t heat too much or you can lose the shine.

To create a well-interlocked and relatively even sheet, I like to tease the fibers apart with my fingers and make a fairly even pile like the one shown here. And after pressing it is a sparkly sheet:

After pressing, use it like fabric when stitching our organza designs. Using our organza designs, you will place the Angelina “fabric” on or under the hoop (please follow individual instructions for our designs) and stitch an outline. You will trim the Angelina along this outline. This leaves scraps which can be re-used by cutting them up, arranging them and bonding them together to form another fabric sheet. Nothing need be wasted.

Our new two-layer snowflakes look sparkly using Angelina, especially by candlelight or holiday lights. They can be hung from a simple garland, placed on “stems” for decorating potted plants or other areas of your home during the holidays, and of course they make great tree decorations.

Angelina products look great with our 3D organza designs, such as 3D Butterflies and 3D Angels; but it can also be used for our regular organza ornaments designs, such as this star from our organza ornament set E058 Organza 2007: After soaking the stabilizer out of the designs, the best way to allow them to dry is to place them between two layers of towel and place something flat and relatively heavy (like a book) on top of them. This will keep them flat so you don’t need to press them after drying, as you normally would. If you do have a need to press them at any point, be sure to use a press cloth and low heat and don’t press them very long to preserve the color and sheen of the Angelina.

We hope you will enjoy the posts on our new blog and find inspiration for new ideas of your own. We appreciate all of you so much and look forward to sharing more tips with you here at K-Lace Place.

Visit our website at http://www.k-lace.com