Valentine’s Day is just around the corner, and while you probably won’t have time to stitch anything overly ambitious, there’s certainly time to knock together a handmade Valentine’s Day card for your loved one. Remember, you don’t have to be in a relationship to celebrate this holiday – a modern renaming to GALentine’s or PALentine’s Day shifts the focus to the importance of loving friendships, or even just showing appreciation for yourself! Whoever you want to shower with admiration on February 14th, check out our top ideas of cross stitches to help you celebrate.
Aperture Cards
Not everyone likes receiving flowers, and those with New Year’s resolutions to cut back on candy won’t appreciate a box of chocolates, but you can’t go wrong with a traditional Valentine’s Day card. Show someone what they mean to you by creating a significant aperture card with a personal design. You can buy ready-made kits with cute motifs, slogans, and characters, or come up with something totally individual. If you want to put together your own cross stitch design you can still buy a ready-to-go aperture card – just add your own aida with an image of your choice. Remember to measure the hole in the card before you start stitching!
Couple Portraits
While some couples might get a professional photoshoot, or even pay to have their likeness daubed in paint, a fun way to memorialize your lives together is by stitching a cross stitch portrait. You can use online programs to turn photographs into realistic portraits with detailed guides on what color of threads to use. You could also put together a cute, more cartoon-like representation of yourself and a loved one. This video from Stitch People can help you get started with creating a bespoke cross stitch portrait for Valentine’s Day.
Date Invitation
If you’re running short of time to stitch something spectacular, how about using cross stitch to produce an invitation? Whatever it is that you’d like to do with your loved one – a fancy meal out, tickets to a basketball game, a trip to the mountains – stitch their invitation onto some soft aida. This could be glued into a card or rolled up like a scroll and secured with ribbon. Not only is it a cool way to receive an invitation, the present can be kept as a reminder of the special date you had together – you could put it in a small frame, pin it to a note board along with a photograph to remember the event, or used as a bookmark.
Made with Love
If your creative skills extend beyond the cross stitching world, how about making some cute ‘Made with Love’ labels to decorate your other gifts? Jars of jam, boxes of cookies, bottles of homebrewed beer, boxes of handcrafted chocolates… whatever the gift, it will become all the more precious when accompanied by a hand-stitched label. You could go simple with just the words ‘Made with Love’ in plain cross stitch or make a more elaborate design featuring a boarder of little hearts or clusters of flowers.
Heart Shaped Lavender Bag
A sweet, simple gift can sometimes be the most heartfelt. If you like to keep your drawers and closet smelling fresh, you’ll understand how lovely it is to receive a lavender bag that is both practical and pretty. Embroider a straightforward decoration onto the heart-shaped cloth or create a dazzling lavender bag with stitches all over. Bumblebees are a popular motif for a lavender bag, and accompanied with a sweet slogan like ‘Will you BEE mine’ or ‘HaBEE Valentine’s Day’ will make it the perfect gift to celebrate the holiday.
IOU Cards
The great thing about IOU cards is that you can customize them to say whatever you want. Whether you spell it out in words or use cross stitch to create little pictures and motifs, you can use scraps of aida (perhaps presented in a cute keepsake box) to give your sweetheart multiple gifts at the same time. Ideas might be tokens for cooking dinner, a romantic massage, a candlelit bath, movie night with popcorn, or whatever loving activity your couple would like to receive. Friends would appreciate this gift just as much as romantic partners, or you could make a box of IOU cards to practice self-care and give yourself a little bit of TLC.
Cross Stitch Vouchers
A special gift from you to you? Or perhaps a GALentine’s Day gift for a friend who is as enamored with cross stitch as you are? Whoever the gift is for, you can find a way to incorporate cross stitch into the special day. Ideas include a craft voucher to buy yourself a cross stitch kit or some new threads, a voucher for a bookstore with a great crafting section, or perhaps tickets to a stitching event near you? If you don’t want to splash out, think instead of a list of ‘Cross Stitch Promises’ – perhaps things that you want to make this year, or special designs you’ll be looking out for in local craft shops.