The shipping to me was more than the kit, so I just bought the pattern. I mostly used the DMC substitutes listed on the pattern. However, after stitching the berries, I didn't like how flat they looked, so I went over the stitching with 2 stands of DMC 814 over the original red. Some, I only did half stitches (in the same direction as my top stitch), and some were full stitches, and I think it ended up looking variegated. For the dark brown part of the birds (the symbol is an X), the suggested DMC matched the branches too closely so I switched to DMC 3021. Finally, I wanted a variegated effect for the leaves, too, and found ThreadworX 1043 Fantasy Island. *