Birth Announcement Cross Stitch

  This is a small birth announcement I made for one of my cousin’s who’d just had a baby.  It’s fairly small, just 5×5, and took about a day to finish.  I would say this took about 5hours or less to complete.  I took the letter from an alphabet sampler and changed the color from purple to blue to make it more baby-gender appropriate (and to go with the nursery).  The birth date and name I hand stitched, and luckily it all ended up pretty even.  I love it when that happens…  Although if you want to be on the safe side you could always count out the stitches or use graph paper to visually space things out.  I would recommend that if you’re dealing with a longer name or birth month, just to make sure the font style you use is able to fit on a smaller pattern.

Once finished I put it in a simple black frame.  I find you don’t need to get really fancy frames when you’re giving a cross-stitch gift, a simple frame helps set off the pattern and it’s also more likely to fit the decor of whatever room the person you’re giving it to has in mind.  (It’s also easier for them to replace the frame if they wish).  If this was for a girl I’d change the color, obviously, to something more girlish.  Also, for a girl you could add some bead work.  Even to just make things look a little fancier (boy or girl) you could replace the brown outline on the moon with a gold thread for some extra embellishment.  It all depends on your style and taste, or that of the person you’re giving it to.