{saturday craft: painted embroidery hoops}

Hi there! {waves}
Today’s Saturday Craft is a spin-off of stretching fabric over embroidery hoops. And it involves paint :]

My painted craft was inspired by two of my favorite colors: teal and pink. One wall in my studio is a collage of embroidery hoops stretched with fabric. I thought it would be fun to change two of them out with an inspirational word {create} and a cute image of the sewing machine that’s responsible for my ruffles.

Here’s what you’ll need:
2 embroidery hoops {any size you want {mine are 7″ hoops}
2 pieces of felt {canvas or fabric would work, too}
acrylic paint + paper plate
paint brushes
scissors or rotary cutter for felt

To start, place your embroidery hoop on top of your felt and cut around the hoop. Be sure and give yourself an extra 1.5″ or so, so there’s room to stretch the fabric around the hoop.

I practiced both paintings on paper before I painted on the felt. One thing I noticed right away is the paint brush sticks a little to the felt {verses the white copy paper}. This made a big difference in efficiency and smoothness of my brush stroke.

Once I knew how big to make my drawing, I painted right on the felt. It was so fun ~ I have forgotten how much I heart painting. Another tip: I kept the embroidery hoop on top of the felt so I knew where my edges were when painting {see below}.

Below is the sample of my second painted hoop, and I think both samples are really cute ~ I saved them, maybe I’ll use them for another project?

My second painting, painted on the felt:

Sew cute, like Mr. & Mrs. …

I love my finished hoops!
Painting on the felt easily took 3x more paint then when I painted on the copy paper. I *almost* wish I painted on stretched canvas, but the felt ties in sew well with my love for sewing :]

My paintings may not look perfect to you, but they look prefect to me, and that’s what matters the most :]

And how cute are they on my studio wall?! love love love ~

My view when I’m sewing ~
{so pretty & spring-y}

Want some ideas of what YOU could paint onto your felt-stretched embroidery hoops?
Here’s a quick list I came up with:
your favorite colors written out {i love typography art!}
a drawing to represent your hobby: your favorite craft notions, your car, your garden, your kitchen
a silhouette of your pet
a tea cup or coffee cup

And here are some fun ideas to embellish your hoop:
use contrasting paint colors {or puffy paint}
embroidery stitch around the edge of your painted design or the edge of the hoop
glue buttons or other small items
tie ribbon to the top, like a pretty bow :]

Happy painting! xoxo