Luckily, I already had this little frame on hand, which I picked up from Michaels not too long ago. It was so cute that I knew I could use it in some way - and it was
perfect for this craft! As a rule, I don't really like putting pieces of cross
stitch behind glass - it can be a tight fit, it negates their
three-dimensional aspect, etc. So, when I pulled away the backing of my
mini frame, I was pleased to discover that its 'glass' was really just a
cheap plastic film, adhered to the backside of the frame itself. A few slices with my Exacto knife, and I had what I wanted: |
| A few slices of the blade... |
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| Such craftmanship... ha! |
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| ... and Ta-Da! A pane-less frame, painlessly achieved. ;) |
At this point, it was probably something like 2am, so I left my prepped frame empty for the night. The next morning, I started brainstorming for pattern ideas. I wanted something meaningful for the couple, but not just their initials or something since it was already such a little piece. I began trolling their Facebook pages (shameless, I know) for ideas - mainly colors, at first (they are in the process of merging households). However, I stumbled on a cache of photos of their travels to India this past fall. If memory serves correctly, my friend joined his then-girlfriend as she was on a service trip to the country... though the details escape me. At any rate, during their time there they visited the Taj Mahal together and took a few adorable couple photos, which served as the basis for my inspiration.
Once I knew I wanted to cross stitch them a teeny tiny Taj Mahal, I set about finding a pattern (I'm not the best pattern-generator, even with graph paper [been there, tried that]). After casting about fruitlessly online, I remembered my QR code cross stitching experience and typed: "pixelated taj mahal" into Google (or something like it). While wading through those results, I finally hit paydirt:
I don't know what those beads are, or what this item is, really - I cropped the image down a bit (the original has INDIA spelled out underneath, and I didn't really think that was necessary). I would link you to the source page, but when I attempted to visit it via Google Image, my browser freaked out, saying it wasn't safe. So, I just captured a screenshot from the safer Google Image vantage point. After doing some math (translating the pattern onto Aida cloth in terms of size), I knew I had a solid winner. After rooting around my thread collection, I settled on a combination of burnished orange and gold for contrast.The gold thread is a little bit of a pain to work with, to be honest - it has a more wiry constitution, if that makes sense. It was worth the mini hassle, though, because the mini Taj Mahal came out so well! What do YOU think?
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| Click to Enlarge |
Yeah, I sneaked my initials in the bottom-right corner. The right image is for copying purposes, if anyone finds themselves in need of a solid miniature Taj Mahal cross stitch pattern. :P
I used double-stick tape to attach my cloth to the frame backing to hold it in place, which worked really well. In case you're curious, the project only took 3-4 hours total (I indulged in the ABC Family Harry Potter marathon while stitching). Here's my finished result:
