ED220 Mandala in black and whiteCompleted by Pamela Horton The whispering Platypus

This design by Emy van Schaik is meant to feature black and white and as I have had a flood disaster and lost a lot of completed cards for Christmas, I could see how well this design would suit Christmas red, green and silver shades equally well.

I transferred the design onto white satin finished 170gsm card cut at 13.5cm square and completed the green stitching first using dark green polyester thread.

I then used red polyester thread to complete the centre double stitched centre and the larger of the 14point star shaped circles and the 9point smaller star shaped circles.

It may have been easier to complete the bead attachment before stitching the larger sections of the green stitching.

This would have made finding the correct lie for each of the beads. To make it a little easier, as I had completed the green stitching and as I did not have any rice beads to suit on hand, I have used 2mm sized red glass seed beads, I completed the 8 inner round single red beads first, using red polyester thread.

I then continued in this manner round by round counting from the sheet provided how many spaces I needed to leave between each round and on each of the shorter and longer lines.

The third, fourth and fifth rounds each have 2 beads and the largest top round has three beads. I used a trimmed tiny padded D.S. square to mount the centre star. The white 200gsm crafty Bob matte white photo paper is scored, folded and cut down to measure 15cm, high.

The striped backing sheet is finished at 14.5cm square and made by the vertical stripe measuring 14.5 x 9cm and the overlapping horizontal stripe cut at 14.5 x 5cm has the red Christmas sentiment embossed ribbon attached across the join horizontally 4.5cm up from the lower edge.

This is attached to the card front using D.S. red power tape. I have backed the stitching and beading with copy paper cut at 12.5 x 12.5cm and used red power tape to secure the work and then attached to the card front using D.S. red power tape.

The red decorative peel off edging, silver sentiment, stars and the red berry silver holly work extremely well as extra embellishments which are complemented with the matching sentiment embossed ribbon bow.

I have used an antique look Christmas verse sheet to both sides of the insert, a small image of the finished card front and a greeting with holly and a red bow completed the Christmas card project.

The black and white version of this has made an excellent male card teamed with a black and white car racing flag as part of the insert.

For this completed card I stitched the black round matte seed beads on before stitching the lines in polyester black thread.

I will make the black and white and the Christmas shades both again, thank you Emy for such beautiful designs with clear and concise instructions, it makes completing projects so easy.

Pamela Horton. The Whispering Platypus.