Homemade Gifts: Embroidered Picture Frame Mat Tutorial

I am a huge fan of creating homemade gifts, and in this post I’ll show you how to embroider a picture frame mat. If you have limited time or you’re looking for an easy way to add a personal touch to an already thoughtful gift, I think your friend or loved one will cherish this!

Supplies Needed

• Embroidery needle
• Picture frame mat (I used a 5 x 7 mat)
• Pencil
• Embroidery floss
• Scissors
• Felt or foam board
• Compass or fine tip awl (optional)

If you want to follow along, grab the traceable design with hole placement suggestions. Keep reading for step by step instructions or hop to the video.

Tips For Creating Your Own Design

Mark Where the Frame Overlaps The Mat

If you want the design to be centered on the mat, place it in the frame you intend to use and mark where the frame overlaps the mat.

Then, lightly mark the center of the mat and where you’d like the design to end.

Draw Basic Shapes

Use circles and lines for flowers and leaves and gentle, curved lines for stems. You can also add cursive or block lettering.

Stick With Simple Stitches

Back stitch, chain stitch, woven rose, lazy daisy, and fly stitch work well for paper.

Stitches that densely fill in an area (like the satin stitch and long and short stitch) are not ideal because they can cause larger holes or tears in the paper.

Check out this tutorial for embroidering on paper that has more helpful tips and photos for completing each stitch.

Embroidering The Frame Mat

Placing The Holes

When you’re embroidering on heavy card stock or mat board, you’ll want to pierce the holes first before you embroider.

Place the mat on a piece of felt or foam board. You can use an embroidery needle, but an awl or a compass makes it easier to punch holes into the board.

Make holes where the stitches should start and end.

Avoid placing the holes too close together, which may create a larger hole.

Filling in the Center Flower

To secure the thread, start with a quilter’s knot. You may need to flip the mat over to see which hole you’re going into.

Fill in the center flower with the woven wheel stitch. Start by making 5 stitches in the shape of a star. The beginning of each stitch should start in the center hole.

Using 3 strands of floss, start slightly off center from the flower and weave under and over the stitches to fill it in.

Stitching the Small Flowers

For the flowers directly to the sides of the woven wheel, make lazy daisy stitches using 3 strands of dark pink floss.

Make two straight stitches across each petal to fill in the small pink flowers.

Stitching The Stems

Using 2-3 strands of floss, back stitch the stems, then make lazy daisy stitches to fill in each leaf.

Add some additional holes to add some small French knot flowers. (I waited to add these holes until now so that the design didn’t get confusing!) Make 2-3 wraps around the needle using 3 strands of floss.

Trim and secure threads, and place the mat in the frame. You can keep the glass off so the stitches don’t get smushed, but it should look fine either way.

Video Tutorial

If you found this tutorial helpful, take a look at my embroidery framing tutorial or get even more embroidered gift ideas.