kid artwork and embroidery

I've been seeing kids artwork embroidered on white fabric online recently. I love them but never thought my stitches were good enough to be made into a nice piece of art. I was about 2 seconds away from advertising on etsy's alchemy page for someone to make up a piece for me when I decided it didn't hurt to try on my own first. I really want to hang a family drawing up on our mantel for valentines day. (I'm ditching our regular mantel decor for seasonal decor right now. I loved the change at Christmas time want to try to keep changing it throughout the year.)

This website has a wealth of knowledge about different stitches, nice photographs, and a number of projects.

I asked Bee to draw a family picture and this is what she came up with. She did it in pencil, I traced in a thin black sharpie.




I held the drawing up to a window and placed a piece of regular old quilters cotton on top. I traced with a pencil. Bee chose colors for each of us. We picked up a cheap wood hoop at Joann's for about $1.40. I used a plain old back stitch to trace her lines.
Here's a close up of the back stitch. (This is a pic from my second project)

Currently, It is still in the hoop. I might add a ribbon to the hoop and hang it on the wall as is. She is so proud of it. If you kept the fabric behind it large, you could make it into a pillow, you could use it as a pocket on a tote bag. You could even do this to a shirt for Grandma. Sorry Grandmas, I'm keeping this one!

*I especially like that the cats have three body sections, like an ant! This is the first time I have seen her draw the profile of something though, so I am impressed with that. She also pointed out to me that she and Lou are holding hands. I guess that means that daddy is pinching my leg? He does have a sneaky smile on his face! Lou is the only one with decoration on his shirt. She says it's a picture of him. Lou is wearing a Lou shirt.

** I tagged this as a 'good buy' because it was such a cheap project. The hoop costs $1.40 and we had the fabric and embroidery thread on hand. If not, they are only 37 cents a thing. Kid art is free. That's a good buy in my book.