I’m trying to clean up my work spaces in the basement which means finally stretching and mounting all the cross stitches and diamond paintings I have laying around.
During the massive COVID years, I stopped drawing and painting and went back to doing some of my former hobbies. I’ve always loved doing cross stitches! If you come to my house you’d see that I have a bunch framed and hung up around the place.
Then the new diamond paintings came out and I just had to try them too. My kids got some for Christmas and after trying to do them (more then I thought they would) they asked me to finish for them. I did and really enjoyed it so I got a few more for myself.
But then I had all these completed pieces just lying around waiting for me to get my butt in gear and finish them properly.
For both I use foam core to stretch and mount my pieces. For cross stitches I cut out the entire frame size in a piece of foamcore, then I cut out the actual cross stitch size from within that piece. Making sure it’s even on all sides. Then I stretch and pin the cross stitch around the inside cut out piece. I have tiny little pins that I use to pin into the side of the foamcore and that holds the stretch nice and tight. It’s also a great finger workout! Once I have it all evenly stretch, I then put that piece back into the outer foamcore that makes up the rest of the frame size. The pins hold it but can easily pop out, so they become sandwiched between the two pieces of foamcore and can’t move. This way they’ll never pop and shift or lossen. I tape the remaining fabric down in the back to get it out of the way and it’s now ready for the colorful matboard and frame!
For the diamond paintings…I had to scratch my head a bit and think of what to do. I couldn’t do the exact same method for cross stitches since they don’t need to be stretched. And being a new product, I wasn’t sure if the little diamonds would pop off. So for those I again cut out the full frame size but this time I taped the piece down in the middle. Don’t ask me if this is proper because I have no clue. But it worked for me so I’m going with it. On the backs I used double sided extra strength tape. I made sure to place a piece in strategic places. Edges and anywhere it seemed to flex and warp. Once that was taped down, I went and sealed the edges with a fabric hinging tape I normally use with my mat boards. It sticks to the fabric and foamcore amazingly. Now they too are ready for matboard and frames!
