On the third day of Craftsmas our DIY will be:

• flowering hoops a-hanging,

• gold feather earrings (here!), and

• a warm, chunky arm-knit blankie (here!)

I’ve been seeing fun uses of embroidery hoops all over lately, so I decided it was time to jump on that bandwagon. I’m happy for embroidery hoops, which have been considered ‘cool’ exactly never in their lives, because they’re finally having their moment in the limelight.

I really like the way these turned out- I made one Christmas themed hoop, and one that would work year-round. The beauty of them is that you can make them out of a small collection of almost anything- wouldn’t a cluster of pom poms be fun? And you can hang them from a door, on a window, or on kitchen cabinets like I did. The options are endless.

I started by walking through Hobby Lobby and grabbing everything that I thought might work on one of these hoops that happened to be half off (except the succulents were full price… but I love them so #worthit). Here’s what I came up with:

Christmas hoop:

You’ll need:

• Medium sized embroidery hoop

• One card of flocked leaves (Christmas tree decor section- can’t find online)

• One card velvet flowers (Christmas tree decor section- can’t find online)

• One ornament of your choosing (“Merry and Bright” ornament- can’t find online)

• Pink velvet ribbon

Note that you can use just about anything you want and attach it to the hoop- I strategically picked things meant to clip onto trees so that I didn’t even have to glue anything. I just clipped 5 things to the embroidery hoop, and looped a ~3’ ribbon through the ornament and then through the hoop.

Total cost: $13

Total time: 10 minutes

Succulent hoop:

You’ll need:

• One metal ring

• Two succulents

• Wire and/or hot glue

• Black and white ribbon

This one took a bit more time just because I actually had to work to attach these items to the hoop. I first tried hot gluing, but it didn’t seem very sturdy and the succulents are a bit heavy. Ultimately I found some wire I had laying around and just wired the succulents to the hoop, hot gluing a few leaves strategically in place to hide the wire. I then cut a ~3’ piece of ribbon and looped it through to hang. I did glue the ribbon where I wanted it on the hoop. You’ll need to play with the hoop a bit to get the weight distribution right. If you offset the weight too much, it will hang funny when you glue on the ribbon.

Total cost: $9 (I already owned the ribbon)

Total time: 15 minutes

So fun, right? How cute would it be to make tiny versions as ornaments? Don’t forget to share or tag friends on Instagram to win the hoop of your choice. Happy hooping! :)

Toodles, tlo