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Inspired by the beautiful work of Mimi.embroidery, I recently set out to take one of the happiest memories from my childhood and achieve my dream of creating an embroidery shadow box.

Did I have a pattern? No.
Did I have tutorial videos? No.
Did I have guidance of any sort? Triple no.. BUT I wasn’t going to let that stop me!

Sometimes you get an idea in your head and you just gotta go for it, regardless of whether or not it’ll work. Creating Little Bear was exactly that, and I’m here to show you how it was done.

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**Please Note: I'm a participant in the Amazon affiliate program, and some of the links in this post are affiliate links. That means I might earn a small commission if you click them and buy something, but it doesn't cost you anything extra! It's just a way to help support me and my site as a small artist. Okay, now that that’s out of the way.. back to the content!

Supplies

Having the right supplies is important for any project, but how do you know which supplies are the best ones to bring your vision to life? …Normally that would involve lots of research, testing, and of course a huge investment of time. Thankfully I’ve already done it, so you don’t have to! Below you’ll find a list of all the essential supplies I used to complete this project, along with my reasons for choosing them. ^_^

The Must Haves:

The Nice-to-Haves:

The Design Concept

If you happened to read my Create Whimsy interview a few months ago, then you know I start planning my projects months in advance. It can take a while for an idea to come to life, and since I usually spend over 100 hours on my pieces I need to ensure that it not only looks good, but that the concept will actually work as well!

When creating my designs I generally go through a series of steps:

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My creation process often varies slightly from piece to piece, but going through these steps helps me visualize my design before I ever begin. Usually the first thing people will see is a fully flushed out pattern and color palette, but behind that is many months of planning, measuring, and collecting all the materials that help bring the concept to life.

Getting Started

With my design concept in place, it was finally time for the project to begin!

Since this pattern was so intricate, I determined the best method of transfer would be printing onto water soluble stabilizer. Being able to print the design directly onto the stabilizer meant that I would not only capture all the tiny details of the pattern flawlessly, but it would allow me to transfer the design after my fabric was secured to my Evertite stretcher bars.. ensuring that the image would not distort or warp during stitching. The downside to this was that I would not be able to paint with my watercolors until after Little Bear was fully embroidered, which meant that I would only get one chance to paint and if it didn’t go as planned I would either have to accept it as is or start all over again.

Despite the risk, and my own personal lack of painting experience, I decided that using water soluble stabilizer was still the best transfer method. I reassured myself that when it came time to paint I would practice on scrap fabric first and pace myself as needed to get the best outcome possible.

The vast amount of texture you can create is probably one of my favorite things about embroidery. The options are almost limitless, but determining which textures to use and how to achieve them when creating your pattern can feel a little intimidating at times. The best way I’ve found to combat this daunting task is to begin embroidering in an area I feel confident in, letting the rest come to me as I work on the project.

For Little Bear I knew I wanted to capture as many fine details as possible, so to achieve this I decided to use a single strand of Gutermann Black sewing thread. It might not appear different at first glance, but sewing thread is actually much thinner than six-strand embroidery floss (and doesn’t have the fuzzy appearance that DMC’s #310 is notorious for). With that said, it can be a bit of a learning curve when switching from six-strand embroidery floss.

One thing I noticed was that even with a size 10 needle I found my sewing thread frequently slipped off, leaving me a bit frustrated with constantly having to re-thread the needle, but the more I worked with it the with it the easier it became to prevent this from happening. Another area I struggled with was creating curved lines and circles.. Sewing thread is so thin that you have to be very precise with your stitches if you want to create small curves like the antenna on Little Bear’s helmet. The best way I found to achieve this was to simply make small stitches… and I do mean EXTREMELY small, to the point of almost microscopic. Eventually your teeny tiny stitches do form a curve, and before you know it you’ve made a circle!

I began with the cluster of brush/grass to get the hang of the sewing thread, as this area would easily hide any mistakes, then I moved onto embroidering Little Bear himself. For areas like the helmet I followed my pattern almost exactly, but when it came to Little Bear’s fur I found that simply “thread sketching” more freely in the same directional lines as my pattern gave me a better outcome and the beautiful appearance you see on the finished piece.

After Little Bear was fully stitched, I rinsed off the water soluble stabilizer and set out to begin the very intimidating task of painting the scene. I’d purchased watercolor pencils specifically for this project, as I felt more confident with them verses traditional watercolors, but that didn’t help the task feel any less daunting. I started by embroidering some random clusters of stitches on scrap fabric to mimic a few of the different areas I’d be painting My goal was to determine how the pencils behaved in the thicker embroidered parts, verses the more open spaces like the sky.. with my biggest area of focus being how on earth was I going to paint the sky with watercolors while simultaneously keeping his helmet pure white.

My tests proved to be extremely useful.. I learned that I needed to color softly with these specific pencils, as the lines don’t blend well on fabric if they’re too dark or sharp. This was especially true for the larger areas like the grass and sky. [ If you look closely you can still see some of the stroke lines of the pencil in the sky where I pressed a little too hard, but shhh.. that’s just between us. ;] As for Little Bear’s helmet, I learned that a hair dryer and incredibly small additions of water were going to be key in preventing the color from spreading.

Once I felt confident enough I began painting Little Bear, and to my surprise it turned out even better than I imagined!

The Art of Precision

When it comes to embroidery shadow boxes, precision can make or break your design if you’re not careful. For this project it was absolutely crucial that my embroidered vines did not change shape or distort in any way during stitching, as they needed to align perfectly with the inner edges of my shadow box frame. One way I found to help prevent this is by stitching in Evertite stretcher bars instead of a conventional embroidery hoop.

For the vines I chose black sheer chiffon to create the same cross-hatched effect as shown on the cover of the book, so the next step was to actually get my design onto the fabric. Since it was crucial that the vines did not change shape in any way, I double checked my paper model measurements, printed my design onto the Vilene stabilizer, couched the stabilizer into place, and then checked my measurements once more before I began embroidering.

Working with chiffon can be quite tricky, as it has a tendency to warp and tear when stitching, but using a stabilizer will actually help keep fabrics like chiffon/tulle/organza in place while you work. With that said, I knew I still had to be extremely careful when couching down my wire, as pulling my stitches too tightly could alter the shape. You can actually see in the image above that the top left outer edge of my design is a little crooked, as it took me a bit of practice to get the tension on my stitches just right.

Since I wanted it to appear as though you were looking through the vines to see Little Bear, I decided to take on the difficult task of couching down wire around the entire outer border, which included portions of detail on the vines themselves. For the outer “ ] “ shape I used a thicker 26 gauge wire to help prevent distortion, and then used a thinner 28 gauge for the inner edge of the vines to allow for more flexibility (all couched down with 1 strand of DMC’s #310).

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Now usually I don’t care how the back of my projects look, but in this case I had to care because the chiffon was sheer and any threads on the back that crossed over the empty spaces would show through the front and ruin the purpose of my fabric. To prevent this I took extra caution while stitching and tucked all my threads whenever possible instead of tying knots, in addition to ensuring I started a new thread anytime I crossed over to a new section.

This proved to be an incredibly tedious task, and required more re-threading of my needle than I’d normally do for a project.. But as a result, you can see the cross-hatch effect comes through perfectly!

Once the vines were fully stitched, it was time to rinse off the stabilizer and begin cutting. I knew that trimming the chiffon around the outer edge of the vine detailing was going to be tricky, but my tools actually made the process a lot easier than expected… AND, since chiffon is a more delicate fabric, it was actually much easier to trim away than other fabrics such as cotton.

I began by using my bent Kai scissors to cut away as much fabric as I could, then went back in between the vines with my exacto knife to carefully trim away the areas between the vines that my scissors were too large for. There were some areas that were just too small to cut without potentially snipping my thread, but since my thread and fabric were both black, any bit of fabric that couldn’t be cut away ended up blending seamlessly with the design.

Now there are a number of ways I was considering attaching the vines to my shadow box, but ultimately I decided the most foolproof way would be to build and paint stacks of wooden dowels for the vines to adhere to. Would it have looked more stunning not having the dowels behind my vines? …absolutely. But I just couldn’t guarantee that they would hold up on their own without some kind of support, and I didn’t want to take that risk.

I began by measuring how long each dowel would need to be to fit stacked up within the frame, then used a table vise and handsaw to carefully cut each one down to size. After they were all cut, I checked one more time to make sure the dowels fit as expected, then sanded, painted, and applied a thin coat of clear matte cover spray to seal them.

Overall the process of building out the vine support was pretty straight forward and worked exactly as I’d hoped!

Assembly

Mounting Little Bear to the frame was definitely one of the more stressful parts (..would the glue hold? ..would it be properly centered? ..who knows!), but before that I had to secure the fabric around the canvas. Honestly, I had to do a lot of searching to find a painting canvas that met the requirements of my shadow box, as it had to be shallow enough for the vines to rest slightly in front of the canvas, while still allowing the glass door to close.

At one point I considered gluing the vines to the glass door so I could use a thicker canvas, but ultimately decided that it was far too risky to put glue on the front of the vines rather than the back. Once I had the right size painting canvas, I carefully tacked Little Bear into place, trimmed away the excess fabric, and began sewing the ends of the fabric together with some Pearl Cotton Thread (size 12). To help ensure success with adhering Little Bear to the shadow box, I made sure to keep my fabric and stitching as flat as possible. Whenever I sew my projects around a canvas/mounting board it’s not the prettiest thing, but you can bet that fabric isn’t moving a smidge by the time I’m done!

It was finally time for the moment of truth.. would gluing Little Bear’s canvas to the shadow box actually hold up? ..Only one way to find out!

I’d worked with E6000 Craft Adhesive before, so I knew it would have a strong hold if I could get a flush surface and allow enough time for it to fully set. I started by placing the canvas inside the shadow box and made tiny pencil marks around each side once it was centered. Then I began generously applying glue not only on the back of the canvas, but onto the shadow box itself as well, making sure to not get too close to the edges of my marks/canvas to avoid excess glue from showing after it was dry.

Once everything felt fairly secure and centered, I carefully covered Little Bear with a ziplock and placed a number of random things around my office on top of him to apply as much pressure as possible while the glue set. A few days later I was happy to find Little Bear fully secure and at home within his new shadow box frame.

Gluing down the dowels and building out the inner frame was a pretty easy process. I started by covering Little Bear with a cut up piece of ziplock and a bit of tape, then began gluing each dowel into place using LINECO Neutral pH Adhesive and my Sili Glue brushes. I opted for this adhesive over the E6000 Craft Adhesive, as I wanted to have a bit more precision than the E6000 would allow. Since I chose to overlap the ends of my dowels within the frame, I felt confident the LINECO adhesive would have a strong enough hold to stay in place and support the vines.

When it came time to glue the vines into place I was a bit torn on which adhesive to use, so I took an unused dowel and tested out each one to see how it behaved when applied to the fabric. The E6000 Craft Adhesive seemed to show through the chiffon and looked a bit crusty once dry, whereas the Neutral pH Adhesive was nearly invisible.. so I went with that!

With Little Bear still fully protected in his ziplock shield, I began the tedious process of gluing the vines onto the dowels. Now since the Neutral pH Adhesive is not as quick to dry as the E6000 Adhesive (and because some of the edges of my vines were slightly crooked), I had to work in sections and hold the vines into place for a few minutes to ensure they’d dry flush with the inner edges of the frame.

My Sili Glue brushes proved to be the PERFECT tool for the job! I began by placing a small line of adhesive onto the dowels, then was able to apply a light amount of pressure against the vines using the firm end of my brush. After a few minutes the adhesive was set enough that I could move onto another section until the vines were fully secured to the frame.

The End Result

Overall I invested 114 hours of love into this project and had finally achieved my dream of creating an embroidery shadow box. I felt so happy and satisfied, that by the end of it all I couldn’t imagine selling such a nostalgic, beautiful piece… so I kept it for myself. ♡

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A Note from the Author:

I want to give a big thank you to everyone who cheered me on throughout this project, and of course for anyone reading this blog post now. Your support and encouragement truly inspires me to continue pushing the boundaries of my creations, and I’m eternally grateful. ^-^

If you found this information useful and you want to help support the blog, there’s a “Buy Me A Coffee” link below where you can donate, or you can find prints and stickers in the SHOP if you want to bring a piece of Little Bear home for yourself. Of course, any and all shares to social media are another a great way to help provide support and are immensely appreciated.

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Was this topic helpful to you? Did it inspire you to create a shadow box of your own? ..I’d love to know!