I love snow-globes and have several of my own that I take out and display during the Christmas holiday season. So, when I saw the Snow Globe Mill Hill #MH14-1734 cross-stitch kit I wasn't surprised that I was drawn to. Snow globe, cross-stitch - what's not to love!
The Snow Globe Mill Hill #MH14-1734 pattern uses full cross-stitch and straight stitch highlighting as well as beads of various sizes for emphasis and depth. The Mill Hill patterns usually call for certain areas of the perforated paper to be left untouched like the background or border. In this case they were leaving sections of the light blue perforated paper border untouched.
In embroidering the cross-stitch I decided to once again utilize the rectangular wood frame jig that my darling husband built for me that I could tape the edges of my perforated paper to. The wood frame jig is a rectangular embroidery hoop of sorts, but without bending the perforated paper. He had made it out of 1/2" x 1" pine wood strips with an adjustable center strip that I used for this 5.25 x 5.25 square design.
I had learned from previous mistakes that I needed to draw diagonal lines to locate the exact center of the perforated paper as in previous perforated paper cross-stitch picture I have done the picture was slightly off center by a few holes which caused a problem with inserting the needles in the holes along one of the edges of my frame. So, I lightly drew a diagonal line across each corner with a pencil to get the center point of the perforated paper.
A lot of the cross-stitch 5.25" by 5.25" pictures I have made were finished in small 6 1/2" by 6 1/2" shadowbox frames with 5" by 5" openings that I had gotten at Michaels when they went on sale one year. I used up all the shadowbox frames I had gotten previously and have been looking for them ever since and hadn't been able to find that size again.
I did, however, find some 7" x 7" by 1 1/2" shadow box frames with a 5 1/2" x 5 1/2" opening at Michaels last year and bought a few white ones and black ones when they were on sale. I was hoping to use one of the white ones with this project.
The directions did not include any instruction for finishing the back. I decided to finish mine with thin adhesive press-board paper. I used an 8" by 10" Pres-On sheet that I cut 6" by 6"with kitchen scissors to fit my picture. The shadow box came with a padded velvet sheet glued to the rigid back of the shadow box frame which was about 1/8" thick. My cross-stitch picture glued to the thin adhesive press-board paper was about 1/8" thick so I knew this would be a good fit.
After adhering my cross-stitch picture to the 6" by 6" thin adhesive press-board paper I inserted it into the back of the frame and then inserted the 6" by 6" rigid back that came with the frame over it. The shadow box frame came with 8 metal clips to hold the rigid back inside the frame which I secured. The press-board fit perfectly and was the right depth for the shadow box frame.
The pattern called for a blue colored wooden frame and for the border of the perforated paper to be left untouched like the picture shown below:
