DIY cross stitched heart keychain - with free pattern

Hello and welcome to another week. Since our Valentine's Day will be mostly homemade - I'm always in favor of handmade gifts and this year even more so - I've been looking for original gift ideas. 

Sometime last year I bought a set of cross stitch wood frames in different shapes - including, you guessed, hearts. 

So using them for Valentine's Day was an easy choice. I debated going with an obvious pattern of a cross stitched heart, but then opted for a more bright and colorful design - because we all could use some cheering up right now. 

The cross stitch frames I used came from a kit similar to this one:

   

The cross stitch chart is just a combination of squares in different colors - totally random - and I have sized it to fit the particular heart frame I was using. But since you can add or remove squares wherever you need, it's easy to adjust it to another size of frame - or even to embroider it over fabric. 

You can obviously also change the colors according to your preference. For a printer friendly version of the cross stitch chart and the colors I used, click here. 

Once the heart was fully cross stitched I added a border in red embroidery floss and glued a piece of red felt in the back to hide the stitches. 

Then all I had to do was to secure the keychain to the heart. I used more embroidery floss to stitch it in place and that was it. 

The edges of the floss used to sew the keyring to the wood frame are hidden within the felt at the back: 

 

One cute keychain for Valentine's Day ready. More Valentine's gift ideas to come soon, so stay tuned. 

If you missed the link above, you can download the cross stitch chart here. 

Happy Monday and happy crafting,

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