General and Payment Information

How does this website work?
- Browse the website and add items to your shopping cart as you browse.
- When you have finished adding items to your cart, click on checkout and you will be prompted to login to your account, if you are a returning customer. Or you will open a new account if you are a new customer. By having an account this will allow you to track your orders and download patterns in your account.
- Then you will be prompted to complete the checkout with your payment. If you select patterns for download your patterns are in your account to download immediately after payment. If you have any problems downloading them, please let us know and we will email them to you. If you have ordered patterns to be printed and posted to you, the patterns are posted within 2-3 days of receiving your payment. Please allow up to one week shipping time for Australian customers and 2-3 weeks for International customers.

Please note if you are a returning customer you must logon with the email address and password you used to create your account, if you have forgotten your password click on the words forgot your password on the logon screen and a new password will be emailed to you. If you have problems logging on please do not create a new account, please email us at artecy@artecy.com and we can reset your password for you.

You can log in to your account at anytime and change your email or postal address if required. You must first logon with your old email address you used to set up your account then click on my account at the top and you will see the links to change your account information.

Payment Options
We have three methods of payment.

1. Credit Cards
We accept Visa, Mastercard and American Express payments on our website. We have a secure SSL certificate on our website to protect your details. Payments are processed online through the Square payment system. The payments are processed in Australian dollars as we are located in Australia, however the equivalent at the current exchange rate will be deducted from your card in your currency, this amount will be the same or as close as possible to your quoted amount in your currency. Some Banks may charge a small conversion fee, to avoid this you may wish to pay through Paypal instead. Once your payment is processed your patterns will be available in your account to download or posted within 2-3 days if you have selected this option.

2. Paypal
We accept secure payments online through Paypal, who we have been using for 20 years without incident. You do not have to have a Paypal account to pay through them. When you select paypal for payment and confirm your order you will will be prompted to either logon to your paypal account or just pay through paypal to us, just select that you do not have a paypal account. These payments are processed instantly and if you have ordered pdf files these patterns will be in your account immediately after payment. Please note: If you use echeques in Paypal, these do not clear instantly, they will take 3-5 days to process. Your patterns are not available until the echeque payment clears.

3. Check/Money Orders
We understand you may prefer not to pay for your patterns online. We also accept payment by Australian personal cheques if you are in Australia, bank cheques(bank drafts) in Australian dollars and Australian money orders (Please note we cannot accept money orders or personal cheques from outside Australia as the bank fees are too high and they take a long time to clear and we cannot post your order till it clears.). We can also accept mail order payments with Visa or Mastercard.

To pay by mail order
1. First add the patterns you would like purchase to your shopping cart, once you have all the patterns you would like to buy, click on checkout.
2. Either login if you already have an account or create an account. Then check your order and instead of selecting paypal click on Check/Money Order.
3. Continue to checkout, review your order and confirm your order.
4. You will not receive any patterns until payment is received. You will receive an email for your order, you can either print this email or go to your account and view your order and print that page to send with your payment.
5. To pay with Visa or Mastercard please write the following details on your order form. Your credit card number, expiry date, name on the card and 3 digit security number on the back of your card above the signature box. The address to post your payment to is on your order.
6. Once your payment is received we will process your order and email a receipt to you. If you have patterns to download we will make them available in your account to download, if you have asked for printed and posted patterns we will then post these to you

If you have any queries about ordering or if you would prefer to pay another way please Contact Us

GST Information
Please note when we became a registered business for GST we have made the decision not to increase our prices for our Australian Customers, therefore the prices for Australian Customers remain the same as prices for Customers outside of Australia. We will be absorbing the costs of GST.
All prices on our website are to be considered GST inclusive for Australian Customers. If you are a business that is registered for GST and you require a GST tax invoice for your payment please advise us and an invoice will be issued to your email address for you.

Why Choose Us?
Have you ever tried to make a cross stitch pattern from your own images in a cross stitch software program?

If you have, you would realize that just taking an image and putting it straight in the software does not make a perfect pattern. No matter how good the software is, it always takes a human touch to correct colour errors and improve the look of the pattern.
Many hours go into making each pattern, we do a lot of work on each image in various photo editing programs before it is put into the cross stitch software, then we go through each pattern and eliminate colours which do not belong and adjust colours for hair, skin etc
Sometimes for faces, we may have to totally redesign areas such as eyes, lips etc, some of the patterns that use a small amount of colours we may redraw entirely.
We also go through and reduce colours as much as possible and reduce scattered one-off confetti stitches.
We do not just create large photo realistic designs, we try to cater for all customers tastes and skill level. From our Bookmarks, Mini, One and Few Colour designs, right up to our very large patterns, there is somethiing on the website to suit everyone.

At Artecy, we never display the original image on our website. We always display the image created from our cross stitch software so you know what the pattern will turn out like. After all, you spend a lot of time and money stitching these patterns so you want to know they will turn out well.
If you would like to see some of our finished designs stitched up, be sure to visit our completed gallery on our www.artecy.com website. If you have stitched any of our designs and you would like to submit your image for the gallery, we would be very grateful and would so appreciate it, please email the image to artecy@artecy.com

I am Tereena Clarke, the owner of Artecy. I design all of the patterns and website. I have been designing cross stitch patterns since 2000 and in that time my skills as a designer and my software have improved a lot. You can see there is a big difference from the patterns created 20 years ago to the patterns I create today. The first 5 years our patterns were also created in different software, these pattern are no longer available.

Everyone has to start somewhere with their designing experience though, so if you do try to make your own patterns my advice is to not give up.
In 2012 my graphic artist Husband has also started to design patterns with my guidance and he is producing fantastic patterns. So it is truly a family business now.
At Artecy, we figure we must be doing something right, we have thousands of happy members and customers since we went online in 2000. We continually receive positive feedback from customers in emails and through our Facebook fan page. For the rare few complaints we have received over the years we deal with these quickly and efficiently.

If you have a problem with our service or patterns please do not hesitate to let us know, we cannot improve if we are unaware of the problem. We try to answer all emails within 48 hours so if you do not receive a reply please contact us again. Occasionally, spam blockers stop legitimate emails getting through and one of our pet peeves is companies who do not reply to emails.

We provide counted cross stitch patterns with easy to read black and white symbols as these are more popular. We do not provide printed patterns with coloured symbols to save on ink costs, however we can offer coloured pdf files, see the message below. Our patterns vary from 1-6 pages for our small patterns up to between 15-30 pages for our regular designs and 50-70 pages for our very large designs. The patterns are designed to print on home printers, so our large patterns will have the design spread out over several pages. It is impossible to put these large designs on one page as the symbols would be unreadable. For our larger patterns we suggest to stitch one page at a time.

Each pattern comes with
- A Colour image of the completed design,
- Instructions for putting your pattern together and completing it,
- The black and white symbol chart,
- A list to show you which DMC cotton colour to use with each symbol,
- and a usage summary page to show you how much cotton is needed for each colour.



If you would like to sample our patterns first to see how they print you are welcome to download our free cross stitch patterns over on our www.artecy.com website.

So to summarize why you should choose to buy cross stitch patterns from Artecy?

- We have been designing since 2000 so have many years Cross Stitch designing experience. All images we use are fully licensed for commercial use.
- We pay attention to details and go through each pattern to improve colours and to make the pattern easier to stitch.
- We have clear, easy to read patterns which you can print easily at home to start stitching straight away.
- We constantly add new patterns every month.
- We display the cross stitch image NOT the original photo on our website.
- We have a loyal following of happy customers, some have been with us from the very beginning, thank you so much for all your support.
- We truly care about providing good customer service.
- We offer two ways to receive your patterns to suit your circumstances you can go to the Artecy Shop and buy patterns individually to download online to print yourself, or for the higher payment option we can print and post the pattern to you.
- We create our large designs at a size that is easier, quicker and more affordable to stitch and frame, whilst still retaining great detail in the images. If you would like any design on the website to be designed at a larger size please email the name of the pattern to artecy@artecy.com and we will add it to a list and the larger version will be added to the website as soon as possible. We will email you to let you know when it is online. If you look on the Artecy Shop website under the Large Cross Stitch charts, these were all patterns that were requested at a larger size, we generally make them to around double the size, or a bit less, we determine the size that works best for each image.
- Some customers also request certain patterns in a mini or bookmark size. Some of our designs do not convert well to such a small size and some images are only licensed for the larger patterns so unfortunately we may not be able to offer small sizes for these. Feel free to email the names of patterns you want in a mini or bookmark size and we will let you know if this is possible.
- If you purchase a pdf version of a pattern from our Artecy Shop and once you download it you would like even larger symbols or a colour version, we can email a copy through with no problems. Either at purchase put in the comments section "Please email a copy with larger symbols/ colour pattern."or you can email us at artecy@artecy.com after purchase to request this. This would not be available for our printed and posted patterns as colour printing is too expensive. Also only available if you purchase the pdf file directly from our own Artecy Shop website so we can verify your purchase. However if you have purchased one of our printed patterns elsewhere, if you can email through a receipt for proof of purchase and the receipt must be in your own name then we can email a free pdf copy to you.

If you would like to see sample pages of each format you can see them on our other website here Free Pattern Adjustments for PDF downloads

- For printed patterns, we offer free postage for orders over $100US (except for when we have a sale on the website)

We receive many, many request to create custom patterns from customers photographs and artwork. Unfortunately we are unable to offer custom charts at this stage, there is just not enough time left in the day to create our patterns we release each fortnight as well as custom designs.

Instructions for starting your patterns.

I have stitched many of these designs myself and have seen many tips and tricks people use to stitch these type of designs so I am listing some below and I can help you with any queries you have.

Your fabric should be measured at the sizes shown on the front page of the pattern and then add at least another 3 inches all around your fabric to assist with framing. Then cut your fabric to size. Once you have your fabric you fold it horizontally and vertically. Where the two lines meet in the middle that is the centre of your pattern. We recommend to start in the middle to make sure your design is centered.

If you have stitched before or your prefer to start on page 1, from the top left corner of your fabric, measure across 3 inches and down 3 inches and that will be your starting point, if it is a fully stitched design. If the background is removed from the design then from this starting point you will have to count over to the first stitch on the pattern.

We try to make our patterns as easy to read as possible. Alot of people do photocopy patterns at a larger size to make them easy on the eyes or they make a photocopy just to use as a personal use only working copy, which we are fine with. I use a lamp with a magnifier on it to see the pattern easily, best investment I have ever made, as when I get a chance, I mostly stitch at night.

You will notice alot of colour changes with these style of patterns.

We suggest to make it a little less daunting for you to just concentrate on 1 page at a time and each 10 x 10 square at a time. Stitch all the stitches of the same colour in that 10 x 10 square or nearby before changing to the next colour. As the pattern is totally filled you will not see your cotton travelling behind the fabric a small distance. If you are stitching one stitch at a time of each colour this would be very annoying. Note if you stitch in blocks or sections like this you can sometimes see the lines between each section, especially if you leave a project for awhile, so it is recommended to stitch a few colours to the left, right up and below, just so you do not have straight square blocks of stitches.

Many customers also stitch these in a cross country style so they stitch as many stitches as they can of the one colour in the same area, before changing colours. Some use highlighters on the pattern to mark stitches done if you have trouble following the stitches you have completed. I personally use a yellow highlighter on the pattern to mark the stitches of one colour I am going to stitch on a page and then after I complete those stitches I uses a blue highlighter to go over the yellow ones stitched and then I know I have completed them. Then I move onto the next symbol and colour. Just using highlighters seems to help break up all the symbols and make them easier to see.

Hopefully this information will help.
We so hope you enjoy stitching our designs. If you have any further queries please let me know.
Thanks and Best Wishes
Tereena Clarke
Artecy Cross Stitch

Below are some links to our information pages on our other website artecy.com which may be useful and also give you more information about Artecy Cross Stitch

Why Choose Us for your Cross Stitch Patterns?

Completed Cross Stitch Patterns

Free Pattern Adjustments for PDF downloads

Testimonials

Copyright and Use of Patterns

Cross Stitch Instructions

Cleaning and Framing Cross Stitch Tips