Guinea Pig Cross Stitch Kits

[louise_stocker]

Hi there

I've been having a good old think recently about how I can earn a bit of extra money. I have been doing cross-stitches of my guinea pigs for a few years from photos and wondered if anybody would be interested if I could make kits based on their own photos for you to cross-stitch yourself at home. The kit would include material, threads, needle, basic instructions and the chart with symbols.

I will post some of the ones I've already done so you can see what you think:

Morag & Agnes (RIP):

Gwen (RIP) (approx 20cm x 20cm):

I have worked out some basic costs just to give a rough idea.

I think a kit that would give a 20cm x 20cm finished piece (like Gwen's) would cost £25 (more than enough for a picture of 1 pig!)

A kit that would give a 30cm x 20cm finished piece would cost £30 (should be enough for a photo of 2 pigs with them slightly smaller than Gwen).

I don't want to make them too small as you won't get enough detail and they won't look as good when finished.

I'm not sure about postage yet but I don't think it would be much as it should all fit in a large A4 envelope.

I'm not ready to sell any yet but wanted to float the idea first and see if there would be any interest. If there is, I'll go and buy lots of threads and material and get ready!

Also, I could obviously do this with other photos (dogs, cats, rabbits!) Not sure about people - I've not tried them before and not sure how realistically they'd turn out

Would really appreciate any feedback.

Thanks, Louise xx

 

[Toffeewoffee]

Wow they are really good! Really detailed, they actually look like photographs.

 

[louise_stocker]

Wow they are really good! Really detailed, they actually look like photographs.

Thank you

Most people think I'm mad to be cross-stitching guinea pigs but I enjoy doing it while watching TV on an evening - makes me feel like I'm being productive while I'm just sitting on my bottom!

 

[harold_the_pig]

Thank you

Most people think I'm mad to be cross-stitching guinea pigs but I enjoy doing it while watching TV on an evening - makes me feel like I'm being productive while I'm just sitting on my bottom!

Oooh i love cross stitching I would be very interested in this :-)

 

[louise_stocker]

Thank you - great to know someone is interested!

 

[sport_billy]

Wow, they are really good, you are very talented!

 

[4piggiepigs]

I started a cross stitch of my kids but lost it in the house move (was extremely realistic) i got another dmc envelope (what i have to send off with a photo and get the chart) and they are around £16 just for the chart so i would say a very good deal Louise, how many colours would you use? (i think dmc use 32 for people) and what count aida would be in the kit? take me forever to do my 8 piggies lol but would look so cute above their cagex)

 

[louise_stocker]

I started a cross stitch of my kids but lost it in the house move (was extremely realistic) i got another dmc envelope (what i have to send off with a photo and get the chart) and they are around £16 just for the chart so i would say a very good deal Louise, how many colours would you use? (i think dmc use 32 for people) and what count aida would be in the kit? take me forever to do my 8 piggies lol but would look so cute above their cagex)

Thank you. I've done my existing ones on 18 count aida - I did one on a bigger one but it didn't look half as good - you need good eyesight though but it does look much better finished.

The one I'm currently doing at the moment has 75 colours (3 pigs - one black, one brown, one ginger with a light green background and sitting on a purple towel!) but I think this is probably excessive as some threads it uses a TINY amount of and the colours look identical to me anyway. I think 50 would be a good maximum number and I think the ones I posted here had about 50. I've worked out the price based on the total amount of thread and was planning on only including the amount needed of each colour with a bit extra for waste. As I'm new to this if I made a mistake with the amount of thread needed I'd be happy to post a bit extra out free of charge if someone runs out.

I already have a lot of threads but there's some colours that I have none of - I don't have any blues or yellows so would need to invest in quite a few before I got going - unless the first few customers wouldn't mind waiting while I bought the right colours and cut them.

I should have mentioned before, the photo I do it off would need to be very clear with good light and high resolution. The better the photo the better the cross-stitch

Glad to hear there's follow cross-stitchers like me out there

 

[Guinea pigs <3]

Wow, they are brilliant! Well done!

 

[louise_stocker]

Thank you everyone - you're very kind.

You seem to appreciate them more than my pigs though - they couldn't care less

 

[louise_stocker]

Hi
I've been thinking a bit more about this as well as seeing how many threads I've already got. I think I've got about half the anchor range (220 out of about 440 colours!) Don't know how I've managed to amass so much!

If I go out and buy the rest of the threads it will probably cost me about £150 so I just wanted to ask if you thought it reasonable to buy threads as they are needed. This would probably mean the time from someone sending me their photo to posting the kit may be 2 weeks. As I get more and more threads it will be quicker. I'm just worried about investing too much if I don't get any orders!

I've also had a little rethink about prices and I think I may have to put them up a little from what I first suggested. Probably £30 for a 20cmx20cm and £35 for a 30cmx20cm. Other sizes would be available but I would have to work out a price.

I'm also more than happy to tweak any photos free of charge, things like taking out red eye. I've even been known to airbrush out the occasional piggy poop!

Just wondered if that sounded reasonable. I appreciate the feedback so much.

Thanks, Louise xx