Second Finish of 2012

Here is my second cross-stitch project finish for 2012!  It is small measuring in at 7"w x 5"h.  This is the Owl Mini Birth Record from Dimensions Needlecrafts.  This was a perfect gift from a crafty friend that arrived just after the birth of my daughter.  For most of my pregnancy I had been searching for a Birth Announcement type design with owls but I couldn't find the perfect one, until I was sent this one!  Later I found the companion growth chart and I am currently rushing to try and finish it. 

I changed the design up a bit.  I decided to change the "Mama" owl to teal since that is my favorite color, and made the "Baby" pink and teal for my sweet little girl.  I also changed the border and writing colors and added her whole name and the time of her arrival into this world.  The last changes I made was in the leaves and tree trunk.  They were supposed to have bright yellow as the third accent color but I wanted them to blend in a bit more so I used one strand of teal and one strand of the dark green.  The same goes for the bark.  I didn't like the way the yellow green highlighted the tree trunk.  I wanted it to look more natural so I used the blue accent color from the leaves backstitching to highlight the tree limb.

I think one of the reasons why I enjoyed stitching this piece so much was because the 14 count Aida was a light blue cotton color.  The colored background made it easier on my eyes instead of the usual bright white that I almost always end up stitching on.  This was a pretty quick finish for me, it only took about a month to stitch.  It should have been much shorter but I was in the thick of my new role as a new Mom so I could only work on it when my newborn was sleeping, and we weren't entertaining visitors who were eager to meet her.

Please note that I really did finish this though it does not look complete.  I used a retouching editing feature to remove some of my daughters personal information.  I was impressed by how easy and good that tool was at erasing things...almost makes me want to use it to edit out some of the mistakes on past projects that only I can see ;).

 Also I had this framed by Wheaton's Framing and Art Gallery just before I returned to Norway and received it in the mail shortly after.