Cross-Stitch Minecraft Earrings (Double Sided) (WITH PATTERN)

This guide will show you how to make any small cross stitch design you want into a double-sided earring! As an example, this guide uses a lava bucket from Minecraft, but any small (~18x18 or less) design should work. The pattern for these earrings are included, but the possibilities are endless!

You will need:

• Clear Plastic Canvas, 14-Count
  • This count is difficult to find in stores, so you will probably need to look online for some. It comes in white as well, so feel free to go with whatever colors you think work best!
• DMC 6-Strand Embroidery Floss (For this design: 414, 445, 452, 648, 720, 742, 762, 3024, 3799, 3858, and White)
  • These are the colors that the pattern uses, but feel free to substitute with whatever colors you have on hand.
• Scissors
• Needles and Any Other Cross-Stitching Essentials
• Heavy-Duty Thread (not pictured)
  • I use heavy-duty to be safe, and I use black because it's universal, but make the most of what you have. Regular sewing thread would also work, but embroidery thread should be avoided if possible, since it is designed for form over function.
• 2 Fish Hook Earring Backs
• 4 Jump Rings
• Two Pliers
• Cutting Mat & X-Acto Knife (Optional)
  • You can get away with just using scissors, but if you have these they can definitely speed up the process.

This is the step where you cross-stitch your design on to your plastic canvas. Since this guide is specifically about the process of transforming designs into wearable earrings, this step will largely be glossed over, since there are already many fantastic tutorials on the internet to teach you how to cross-stitch, such as this one.

The pattern for the design I made is included in picture form above if you are interested in following along with the same design. It is included in both color and black and white, so you may use whichever form you prefer.

Since these earrings are designed to be double-sided, the pattern provides the original design, and then the mirrored design as well. Since the outline of the lava bucket is symmetrical it doesn't matter that much in this case, but with other designs, it is important to cross stitch two original designs and two mirrored ones, in order to make sure that they will fit on top of each other.

One important thing to note when cross stitching is to leave at least one empty row of holes between each design, so the pieces can be easily separated later. For reference, you can see in the picture included above that there is an empty row of holes between all designs. If you forget to do this, you will run into trouble later, so remember to leave ample room between your designs!

After all of your designs have been stitched, you can start cutting them out! To start, roughly cut them out. In this part of the process, the goal is to separate them from each other, you can focus on making them look nice in the next part. Scissors are the ideal tool, and you want to try to cut down the center of the holes. See the first photo above for reference of what you should have after this step!

After your designs have been cut apart from each other, it is time to make them neater. Use either scissors or an X-acto knife to trim the shapes down so there is one square of plastic canvas on all sides beyond the design. Make sure to never cut into the cross-stitch. If you cut into it accidentally, it will free one of your stitches on one side, and while that piece is potentially still usable, it might not be up to your personal standards, and you may need to restitch one of the shapes. In my experience, you need more caution on this step if you're using scissors instead of an X-acto knife, but you must be careful either way.

Another thing you can try to do is to reduce the "plastic-canvas" look by shaving away the bumpy bits on the sides that you get when cutting something out of plastic canvas. You can see the results of me doing this in the second photo. While this technique does improve the appearance, it must be done with caution so the design is not destroyed. It is also important to be careful with whatever you intend to be at the top of your design, so it is a good idea to leave that part slightly thicker for reasons that will become apparent later.

To start attaching the pieces together, cut off a length of the stronger thread that's about a foot long, and tie a knot close to the end. Then run the thread underneath one of the stitches on the back of the design, and make sure the knot holds. Once this is checked, run the thread underneath more stitches out to a corner of the design, and trim off any excess tail behind the knot.

Once this has been completed, you are ready to start attaching them together. The best way to describe the stitch used to fasten them together is that it's similar to the running stitch used in embroidery: you simply want to go up and down through the holes, one at a time, making sure that the designs are lined up correctly.

You can see in photos three and four what a very loose version of this would look like. However, you want to be pulling your stitches tight to try to prevent any gaps at the sides, so it won't look exactly like that.

You want to continue this "running stitch" around your design until you've gone all the way around. At this point, you want the outline to look a bit like the one above, with a dashed line as a border. If you are happy with the appearance of this, feel free to skip the rest of this step, since it will already have plenty of structural integrity. If, however, you would like to make it an even border all the way around, the rest of this step will tell you how to do this.

The way to do this depends on the parameter of your shape. In some instances, you will be able to just go around your shape twice without having to change directions. You will, however, have to change directions if you can see that if you continue, you will just make your border a thicker dashed line. To fix this, you have to go as far as you can without doubling over a stitch, and then double over the stitch on the back side of your final stitch. You then want to go back in the reverse direction that you've been stitching, and if you've done everything right it should give you an even border instead of the dashed one.

At this point, you should have a border around your design that you are both happy with aesthetically and that will hold your designs together. It should look like the first photo above, with a thread hanging off a corner. If you did not start at a corner, you should still be able to do it, but the corner makes things easier.

The first thing you want to do is that you want to take your needle and go back down through the hole the thread is coming out of. Instead of going all the way through, you want to through one layer, and then you want to angle your needle so it's going out, as can be seen in image two. Once you pull on the needle, you should have a thread coming out from the center of your design.

After this, you want to insert your needle into your design sideways so that the thread will get caught between the stitches on the back of your cross-stitch, as in photo three. You want your thread to be caught under at least five stitches, but make sure not to be too ambitious with this, since if you go under too many stitches it can be very difficult to pull your needle out.

After the thread is pulled out of a different side, you want to trim your thread as close to the design as you can without cutting the plastic canvas. You can then use the back of your needle to poke the remaining end back underneath your design so it is no longer visible.

While this may not feel like the most secure strategy, there is a lot of friction holding the thread in place, so there is no need to worry about your earring falling apart on you.

To add the earring backs, start off by opening a jump ring. This is a good video about the proper way to do it, but the gist of it is that you want to firmly hold it with both of your pliers, and then twist the sides apart laterally to prevent misshaping the jump ring. Once your jump ring is open, you want to firmly hold it with one of the pliers, and with your other hand you want to press the cross-stitched design onto the jump ring. Make sure you're centering the design exactly how you want, and don't be afraid to press a good amount! It does take some force, but you want to make sure that your jump ring is thin enough that it won't break that loop of the plastic canvas. If you're worried about your jump rings being too thick of a gauge, consider leaving a tab of plastic canvas at the top of your design so the jump ring does not have to share a hole with embroidery floss. Once your jump ring is through, close the jump ring in the same manner you opened it.

After your jump ring is attached to your plastic canvas, open a second jump ring, and on to this one place the jump ring with the cross-stitched design on it and the earring back, which is in this case fish hooks, but can be up to your preference. Since the direction you place your earring back will determine which side of your earring is the front, make sure that your earring faces the way you want.

Then close the jump ring, and your first earring is completed!

Repeat the process of stitching the sides together and attaching the earring back for the second earring, and your earrings will be completed!

Thank you for reading through this guide, I hope you found it useful!