Embroidered Photo Art

When thinking about design and creating a unique look, you always have to take patterns and textures into consideration. Just adding one special texture or print into a decor situation can really give the item a fresh feel. You might remember the stitched photo art we've done on the blog over the past couple years, so we wanted to try it with embroidery thread too. We love the way that artist Jose Romussi takes photography to the next level by sewing beautiful embroidery overtop of photographs, and we teamed up with Canon USA to try the genius idea out for ourselves. Supplies:
-printed photo
-cardstock
-yarn needle
-embroidery thread
-spray adhesive Step One: When deciding on your photo, choose a photo of a person that has a wearable item (like sunglasses or a hat) or a scene with an item of interest (like a cool door or car) where you can concentrate the embroidery detail. We used our MG7120 to print this out on Canon's semi-gloss photo paper. Be sure to you select "photo quality" in your printer settings, and you'll get a pretty immaculate print of your photo. Once your photo is printed, use the spray adhesive to attach the photo to cardstock for structural support while you are sewing. Step Two: Think out where you want your biggest flowers to go (you may even want to print a second test photo and sketch where you would generally like them to be). Now thread and knot your needle with the color of your first flower and start sewing! It took a little bit of practice to get the hang of the flowers since I haven't sewn anything like this before, so I was glad I did practice flower or two on my test photo to get the feel of it first. I found it most helpful to make a few scattered stitches that would the longest parts of the petals and the shortest parts of the petals and then fill it all the lines in between (gradually getting longer and shorter as needed to make the petal shape).

Since you are sewing on paper with a relatively big needle, try and go through the same holes when you can and stagger where your hole placement is around your flower center so you don't end up cutting out a chunk of your photo.
Step Three: When you have your petals in place, you can fill in the center of your flower by making a few parallel stiches in the center of your flower.Step Four: To make leaves, sew a series of longer and shorter stitches that meet down the center of the leaf (see photo above for example). Add as many flowers and greenery as you like and pop your photo into a frame—you're done!
The embroidery adds such a cool handmade feel to the photo and the possibilites of looks you can create are endless! What a special way to embellish a treasured photo, don't you think? xo. Laura