Stitching for boys

I find it incredibly difficult to stitch for the little boys in my life, mostly because my stitching magazines tend to feature cute, anthropomorphic animals, flowers and things that are generally more often associated with girls. (Yes, I am aware that boys can like cute things and flowers just as girls can be into superheroes, cars and dinosaurs, but quite frankly most of my friends’ children are boys and they are into stereotypically boyish things, while the one little girl I stitch for is perfectly happy with fairies and cute critters. I’m not about to make something up just to prove how open-minded I am am!).

Occasionally, a cross stitch magazine does include a “stitching for boys theme”, but they’re few and far between. So when I ordered a cross stitch book entitled “Babies & Children” I was over the moon to discover it contained entire pages of dinosaurs, rockets and planes. Between that and my magazines, I was able to stitch up quite the collection for all the boys’ birthdays I needed to cater for within a 27 day period in August and September! (All my friends’ little boys seem to have their birthdays close together as well…). Here are some of the boyish birthday cards I stitched up this year.

If you took part in this year’s guess the cross stitch game, you should recognise the dragon.

Which of these is your favourite? What would you stitch for a little boy? Give me some new ideas for the next set of birthdays!

Lovely Little Letters

Quite a few children in my life have had birthdays recently – including my godson and my brother – so I decided to make use of some of the various alphabets that have featured in my magazines and make them all cards with their first initial on them. Here’s a small gallery of what I made (click the pictures to see bigger versions). For most of them, I took a close up photo of the stitched image and one of the full card… except the last one where I for some reason only took one of the finished article?!

Apologies for any blurriness – apparently I still don’t know how to use my camera.

You may have noticed that there are two Ts. Just to make things extra confusing they both have the same name! And their birthdays are just 17 days apart. They were born in different years though – one was 2 at the end of August and the second, my gorgeous godson, turned 3 on 13th September.

My favourite is the T monster, but the cheeky monkeys are pretty cool too 🙂

Friday letters

Another Friday (hurrah!)… another round of letters from me to the world.

Photo credit: christing-O-

Dear snow. You looked very pretty this morning and I wanted to take photos, but I was already running late to catch my train. Please stick around til I can get out there with my camera.

Dear new boots. You are beautiful and I can’t wait to show you off! (Post with pictures to follow soon).

Photo credit: mao_lini

Dear S. Happy first birthday! I can’t believe you’re one already! This year has gone so fast…

Dear unread books. I see you eyeing me up from the bookcase every time I walk passed. Please be patient – I promise to get round to you soon. (Pride and Prejudice, you’re next. You can stop glowering at me now ;-))

Dear self. STOP SPENDING MONEY! And yes, that did need to be in caps!

Dear readers. Thank you for sticking around despite all the “I’m going to be 30 soon” and “All my friends are having babies” induced whining I’ve been doing lately. You are all amazing.

Dear TV. We are hopefully coming to get you this weekend. I can’t wait to be able to watch DVDs on a proper screen!

I hope you all have a great weekend, however you’re planning to spend it. I’m at a party tonight and hoping to spend the remainder of the weekend getting a lot further with my current cross stitch picture!