Embroidery hoop wall art

Welcome to my new rainy day / nap time / super scrap busting project! This is another super easy and quick craft you can do when you just need to see something new on the walls. I am making these for my daughters room because, well, to be honest, there's a lot of bare space up in there. I have all these fat quarters of awesome, fun fabrics that I just keep around because I knew SOMEDAY there's going to be a perfect project for them.

Guess what? This is it.

I found some lovely (i.e. awful) embroidery wall hangings in the hoops at Goodwill for $2 for 7 hoops....much cheaper than buying them new! I know someone, somewhere, wishes I hadn't defaced these pieces of artwork, but what's done is done. Here's a look at a few of the hoops I started with.

Lovely, yes?

So, all while being sad about destroying the lace Cabbage Patch Kid art, I methodically ripped apart the pieces of their once glorious fabric lives. There are no pictures of this part because it wasn't pretty. After cleaning up the evidence from my fabric massacre, I laid out the new fabric that was going to slip in and assume the Cabbage Patch Kids lacey life.

Now, at this point, it was still early enough into nap time that I decided to get all fancy and trace around my hoop. You are more than welcome to do that if it makes you happy, but it really isn't necessary. Just for poops and laughs, I will show you the pictures of it in case you need photographic instructions of how to trace. Ready? Pay attention!

Now, you are going to cut around your fancy circle! Don't cut too close to your traced circle though because you need enough fabric to cover the whole inner hoop.

So now you have your fabric cut out. Good job! CELEBRATE! Now, get ready to buckle down. Here comes the hard part. Lay your inner hoop on your work surface and line up your fabric on top of it.

Got it? Good. Push the outer hoop over the fabric and inner hoop. Make sure the fabric pulls tight and even! Tighten the screw at the top to keep everything nice and secure.

From this point on, I stopped being fancy and just cut out a square to use. It made this go even faster than it already was. After you have all your fabrics put into your hoops, trim the excess fabric from the back.

This is what you should have now...

Hang those bad boys up anywhere you decide they need to go! I will most likely rearrange these before I am totally happy and I can change them whenever I get tired of looking at the same prints! The awesome quilt you see underneath the hoop art was made by our good friend Felicia M.!

Hope you enjoyed this quick and easy project!!

~Katey

Nap time project!

Hello world! Welcome to the first this-is-super-cute-but-I'm-way-too-cheap-to-buy-it project! Everyone could use a wipe-off board. I know I walk out of the house every single day forgetting SOMETHING. Seriously, we are here to make your life better. This is where it starts. This is a great project to use that fabric scrap that is just too awesome to get rid of but too small to make anything with. Let's get down to it (because the Creature is still asleep!) and see what we need to do this...

So, you have your dirt cheap frame from the thrift store and your piece of pretty fabric. The only thing you need to make sure of with whatever frame you choose is that it has glass. Marker doesn't wipe off fabric very well. See? Still helping with that better life thing... I digress..

Take the frame apart. Lay the fabric face down and put the frame back on top of it. I'm sure that measuring would be what most people would tell you to do. However, it's nap time and I don't have time for silly measuring. I just cut around the backing and it worked famously!

Now comes the hard part! Put the fabric and the backing back into the frame.

WHEW! Go have a cup of coffee and rest from all that work. No, really. Go. You deserve it. I'll wait. All better? Awesome! This should be what you have to show for the fruits of all your labor.

After all this hard work, I realized I didn't have a stand on the back of my frame so I attached a ribbon to the staples so I can hang this by the front door. I hot glued some ribbon scraps together to make a bow to hide the nail.

And then add a little scrap around the middle to hide the glue.

WOO! Pretty, yes?

Now, either beg a man to do the man-work of hammering a nail into the wall or pull up your big girl panties and do it yourself. Hang that thing up, lady! I put mine right next to the door so I have no reason to forget everything. Positive thinking, right?

Confused about the Sharpie? Good news! Sharpie is easily removed from glass with a scrubbie! Then you won't wipe it off by mistake like you can with a dry erase marker...Not that I've done that and ended up with it on a white shirt. Nope, never happened. Now go make this!

~Katey