The 12 DIYs of Christmas: Christmas Hoop Art

Hello, everyone. I hope you are enjoying the pre-Christmas season half as much as I am.

I feel like one of Santa's elves rushing around trying to finish making gifts in time for Christmas! 

Only 9 days left. We can do this!

This embroidery hoop art is so simple to make. It actually only took me about 10-15 minutes to embroider the word "JOY" and do a red border. I did this at a Thanksgiving family party, too. That part is a secret, though. This is a great thing to do while watching a family movie or TV, as well.

Do not be afraid of trying embroidery because it is SO easy. I am a beginner for sure. 

If I can do it, you can do it.

Christmas Hoop Art

You'll need:

fabric to embroider on

fabric to put on the back

embroidery hoop

embroidery floss

embroidery needle

scissors

pencil or disappearing fabric marker.

First, come up with your design and draw it onto your fabric. You could pick a word like "NOEL" or "JOY", or could even just make a little Christmas tree or ornament, anything really. Any Christmas design that you fancy. Just go ahead and draw it on.

Then, center your design in your hoop and stitch over it with your embroidery floss. I just watched about 2 youtube videos to see different techniques of embroidering words and picked an easy one. 

When you finish your design it will look something like this.

Now most of this post is about how to frame your design in the hoop once you are done.

Get your background fabric and remove your art from the hoop.

Center the inside piece of your hoop onto your background fabric. Then trace and cut about 1/2" to 1" around the hoop out of the background fabric. It doesn't have to be perfect (as always) and mine clearly is not. 

Repeat that same process with your "art" fabric. Now you have two circles of fabric a little bigger than the inside of your embroidery hoop. The marker in my photos comes out in about 24 hours if I remember to NOT iron it. It is pretty nifty (as long as I remember to not iron it, which doesn't always happen).

Next, put both fabrics inside the hoop again. You want the background fabric right side out. Center your design and tighten the hoop, then pull the edges nice and tight all the way around, tighten hoop and repeat until the hoop is fastened and your fabric is stretched out equally.

The back will look a little messy like this.

Just trim the outside with some small scissors as close to the hoop as you can. No glue. No extra sewing. Just a quick and easy project!

And there you have it! Now you can hang your hoop directly on the wall like this, or tie a ribbon to the top to hang it from.

I put mine on my tree because it was small enough. 

Now what are you waiting for? Go try one out!

Let me know how it turns out if you make one. I'd love to see a photo!

Merry Christmas