Make Spring Door Hangers out of Embroidery Hoops!

Do you like to make decor for your front door? Do you struggle to make fancy wreaths? Let’s face it, making handmade wreaths is not easy. I know, because I have tried to make them for my door. Recently, I found a fun and easy idea to decorate the door, using embroidery hoops. I am going to share just a few I made, but there are literally tons of ideas on Pinterest! The best part is you don’t need many materials, they don’t take long to make, and you can personalize them however you like!

The first one I made, photos above, was for February/Valentine’s Day. I made this one very simple because I wanted to attach it to a larger wreath I purchased from Home Goods. The only materials I needed for this project include an embroidery hoop (approx 9″), a swatch of fabric I purchased from Walmart, Paper flowers I purchased from Michaels, iron-on vinyl to create the wording (I made it using my Cricut but you can purchase iron-on phrases or letters), and of course an iron.

The second one I made was at my neighborhood women’s craft club. For this one I used a 10″ embroidery hoop, a flower swatch of fabric I bought at Hobby Lobby, the word “Welcome” which is made out of chipboard purchased at Hobby Lobby which I spray painted white, some purple and white polka dot ribbon from Hobby Lobby, a white butterfly embellishment from Hobby Lobby as well, and different color paper flowers I created using my Cricut (a simple rose pattern cut out on colored cardstock). I used hot glue to attach everything.

The one I just made, photo above, is a bunny rabbit for Easter. I am going to show you how to make this one step-by-step. For this project, you need 2 embroidery hoops, one larger than the other. I am going to use a 9″ hoop and a 7 1/2″ hoop. The flowery fabric I purchased from Walmart. I wanted it to look like Spring! I bought 2 rolls of polka dot ribbon (one pink and white and the other purple and white). Hobby Lobby has a very nice selection of ribbon. You can use any color you like, I chose to use colors that are in the fabric. You could use washi tape or fabric to wrap your hoop as well. For embellishments, I found some headbands at Michaels, one with bunny ears and one with bunny tails, so I purchased those to use for my rabbit. I also used my ribbon for a bow. And finally I found some pretty paper flowers in the Scrapbook section of Michaels, but you could also make your own flowers (cut out using Cricut) or you could even use artificial flowers.

In the photo above, you can see that embroidery hoops come in a variety of sizes. You can also see they have a screw up at the top that you can loosen to pull the two pieces apart and then tighten when you put them together. There is an inner hoop and an outer hoop, you place the fabric in between.

Step 1:

Lay out your fabric and cut it slightly larger than your hoops. Make sure the fabric will fit in the hoops with the preferred part of the design showing through. Then iron your fabric so it’s nice and smooth with no wrinkles.

Step 2:

Decide what ribbon to use to wrap the embroidery hoops. You will only wrap the one that has the screw on it because the other inner hoop is covered by the fabric. Start up by the screw and use some tacky glue to adhere to the under side of the hoop. Then begin to wrap your hoop, each time you go through and around, slightly overlap the ribbon. Make sure to pull thee ribbon tight as you wrap. This will help with getting the outer hoop over the inner hoop with the fabric in between, later. Once you wrap the entire hoop, use a hot glue gun to secure it underneath at the end.

Step 3:

Lay your swatch of fabric over the inner hoop, then push the outer embroidery hoop over top of the fabric and inner hoop. You may have to loosen the screw for it to fit over top, then once you have it on and fabric pulled taut, you can tighten the screw. Next, turn it over and trim off the excess fabric (see photo above). The pink ribbon circle above is the bunny head. I have the screw top center but the purple ribbon hoop is the body and I placed the screw off-center on the bottom (this will later be covered by the tail).

Step 4:

Time to put everything together and create the bunny! As I mentioned before, I found a bunny ears headband and a bunny tail headband at Michaels. I simply cut the ears off the headband (used wire cutters for the wire in the ears) and I was able to cut off just one of the tails with fabric scissors. I used a hot glue gun to attach the ears one at a time to the back of the smaller hoop, one on each side of the screw. Then I glued a flower on top in the center to hide the screw. I hot glued the tail to the bigger circle at the bottom right to cover the screw on that hoop. Next I put hot glue in between the two hoops where I needed them to connect (the body circle on the top center and the head circle on the bottom center) so they would make the bunny whole.

Step 5:

Finishing touches .. I used some of the leftover ribbon  to make a simple bow. I hot glued it right where the two circles are connected. For the hanger, I just used a small piece of ribbon, tied it making a small circle, then hot glued it to the back of the ears. You can use any method you’d like to hang your bunny. You can personalize your bunny any way you choose and make it your own. Have fun with it!

I hope you enjoyed reading about this project and will give it a try sometime. I am ready to start my next one! (see photo below) If you liked this post, give me a like and/or share your ideas with me in the comments. Be sure to check out some of the other craft tutorials and follow my page for future projects! You can also follow me on Facebook or Pinterest. Until next time, keep on craftin’! ~Kristina~