Quick and Easy wall decor

Good morning! I know I've been slacking off lately... 2 weeks ago I had surgery on my neck for a herniated disc so I've been down and unable to really do much. Fortunately, I'm starting to feel like myself again, and I'm being bitten by a million craft bugs! So our ongoing project right now is the kids' playroom. We are ::thisclose:: to being done with it, and this morning after my hubs left to take M to preschool, I thought I might be able to throw together a quick project before J woke up. This project is super easy, requires no skill whatsoever, and would be a great project for your kiddos to help with. This took less than 20 minutes and there was no mess. So, today we're going to create a fun, custom pop of color and design for our wall using embroidery hoops and fabric!

Our playroom is downstairs, and the exterior wall is very textured. The texture creates a challenge for me in this room because wall vinyl stickers don't really work on it, and I don't want to hang a bunch of heavy pieces in a room where the kiddos will be most of the time. 

A couple months ago, I went to a local auction house with a friend for a "girls night". This is the same place I scored the $5 entertainment center I used to create the dress-up closet. I also got this giant box of embroidery hoops for something like $2. 

I don't actually embroider or cross-stitch, but I knew there were a million uses for these so obviously I couldn't pass up this deal, amiright? Of course my hubs is getting slightly irritated with all of my "craft project junk" taking up the garage (man cave) so this morning I grabbed this box to move to my craft room and BAM. Inspiration strikes! I go to my fabric stash and start digging. The playroom is very bright and colorful, with Turquoise, hot pink, light pink, lime green, and purple. I pulled out the fabrics I liked and just played with them. These were my original picks, but I later replaced the dark purple with the same polka-dot fabric I used to line the shelves of the dress-up wardrobe. 

I love colors! You could easily customize this for any room though. A nice mix of neutral geometric patterns would look great in a main room or foyer. You could even use this to create an awesome wall for teens using T-shirts that they have outgrown or that have "bacon-collar", holes or stains. Imagine a music room with concert T-shirts on the wall! The possibilities are endless really. 

I wanted a variety of sizes for visual interest, so I pulled some small hoops for the smaller scraps and larger ones for the bigger fabric pieces. 

Please pardon my floor! I had a hole-punch incident last night and my craft room shares a wall with the nursery so I did NOT want to break out the vacuum and wake J up. I also have my fabric scissors ready to go. Next, I just kind of played around with the hoops and fabric. If you're using a large pattern fabric (like my birds) you'll want to make sure that you're placing the hoop on a nice spot. I wanted a pink bird and flower with a dash of turquoise, but I could have also chosen a turquoise flower or greenery spot. Totally your choice. 

Now for the fun part! A couple things to think about-the tension screw will be at the top, so make sure your pattern is turned the right way. The chevron and tiny flower prints need to be horizontal, not all wonky. Also, I think it looks best of all of the screws face the same direction. So, to create the pieces, you simply loosen the outer hoop and separate it from the inner hoop. Lay the inner hoop down and place your fabric over it. 

Once you're happy with the placement, slip the outer ring over the top, remembering to watch the direction of your pattern and which side the screw is on. Gently tighten the screw, and pull the fabric taut from the back. When you like the way it looks, tighten the screw as much as possible. If you're doing this with kids, you might want to go behind to make sure it's very tight and secure. 

SO EASY, right? I use the large scissors to roughly cut the hoop away from the rest of the fabric so I can go ahead and fold that to the side to put back in my stash. Don't worry about perfection, we can trim up later! Now, just repeat the process with the other fabrics/hoops. 

This took about 5 minutes total. At this point, I went ahead and folded and put away the rest of the fabric so there wouldn't be a mess. Now, you can take the little snippers (or an exacto knife, or a box cutter, whatever!) and trim up the fabric on the back as close to the hoop as possible. It doesn't have to be perfect-that side is against a wall anyway.  Before you do this, make sure you are happy with the placement and direction of your fabric, and pull it tight. Once you trim the fabric you really can't adjust it. Here is the result: 

I love them! Notice the screws are all on the left, and the tiny flowers and chevron are going the correct direction. I also love the placement of the bird, as it really incorporates a lot of the colors. This fabric is leftover from a dress I made for M, which J will be wearing soon. Anyway... Now to hanging. Another great thing about this project is that hanging is so simple. Unlike shelving or heavy items, you don't need to bother with finding studs or using screws/anchors etc. there's also no need for hardware-the tension screws on the top serve as built-in hangers! I just grabbed these small nails and a hammer.

These weigh next to nothing, so they won't weigh the nail down, and if they happen to fall off due to rough housing/climbing kids/earthquake (hey it could happen!) it won't hurt anybody.

So now, I take my hoops to the playroom and decide how I want them to be laid out. This is the wall they will be on 

It's a small area next to a window, and it's directly across the room from the closet. I played around and decided I liked this layout. I wanted the chevron in the center so it wouldn't get "lost" on the pink wall. 

Hanging is super simple. Just put the hoop on the wall, and tap the nail in so the tension screw hangs on it. Couldn't be simpler. Now, the wall has some great visual interest, and the matching fabric from the dress-up closet really helps tie things together! 

You can see that the fabric coordinates well with the different wall colors 

And from inside the playroom closet, I love it even more! Of course we are still working in here, so the train table will not be in this location. We just pushed it over there to accommodate an air mattress for my MIL who came to help out a bit after my surgery. 

And TA-DAH! I completed this entire project in under 20 minutes, and the only cleanup I had to do was hanging the hammer back up on the tool bench and throwing the fabric trimmings in the trash!  

If you're looking for a quick, easy project that you can do yourself or do with the kiddos, this is a great choice! Hopefully the playroom will be complete within a couple days... I can't wait for the final product!