Embroidery Hoop Wall Art

I'm in the process of revamping our living room. I whipped up a new wall art display in about five minutes the other afternoon...

Does it bug you when people grossly understate the amount of time it actually took to do something? In reality, this project took me about three weeks. It could have been completed in a weekend, but I never have an entire weekend to devote to one project. Plus, I always make things more complicated than they really could be. Would you like to see my process? Here you go!

I've been gathering ideas for months now. There's all kinds of inspiration on Pinterest and Flickr. Love this one:

(via)
When I finally decided what I wanted to do, I headed to a local thrift store. I would love to say that I got all those embroidery hoops for a dime a piece, but that's not true. Only the biggest one was thrifted, and it cost me $1.50. The rest came from Hobby Lobby. They were 30% off, though, and cost me $10 total. I got all the fabric at Joann. I had never been to one before. Wow. It was like fabric choice overload. Braden helped me pick out the ones I used. If I was a crafty person, I might have had a fabric stash, and this part could have been free, but I'm not, and I don't, so it wasn't. The fabric was also on sale, and I ended up spending about $30 on all of it, for a total project price of $40.

I tried out a few different arrangements for the hoops on the wall. I stuck them up there temporarily with Mavalus tape.

My teacher friends know what a wonder this stuff is. At my old school, I used it to stick up the big alphabet poster border thing (you know, the kind that goes the length of the chalkbaord?). It stayed up there for three years, and didn't remove any paint when I took it down. Best. Tape. Ever.

Anyway... Once I got an arrangement I liked, I took a photo of it. Then I took photos of all the different fabrics.

Here comes the fun part (if you're a geek like me). I Photoshopped the fabric into the hoops on the wall photo to try out different fabric combinations with just a click of my mouse! Well, it literally took more than one click, but still... FUN! Here are some of the different combinations I considered:


Once I had it figured out, I ironed all the fabric, put it in the correct hoop, and trimmed around the edges. I didn't wash the fabric first (because I'm lazy), but I left some extra around the edges in case I ever do and it shrinks a bit.

I ironed the extra down against the edge of the hoops to keep it from sticking out when I put them on the wall. I put up a Command Mini Hook for each hoop except for two in the middle that hung on the nails where the frame previously hung. The hoops just rested on the top of the hooks, so I put one piece of Mavalus tape at the bottom of each hoop to secure it.

And, that's it! Here are a couple more shots:


Makes me smile.