Happy New Year everyone! My name is Abby, and I run a fashion and DIY blog called Eleanor’s Boots (Les Bottes D’Eleanor, officially). You may have met me at the Ugly Holiday Sweater Workshop I hosted at the Goodwill on Waterloo Road in November of last year. If not, I’ll be popping in a few times this year on the Goodwill Blog to post some quick and easy DIYs you can complete with items easily found at Goodwill or in your own home! Let’s start creating!
The New Year is upon us, which means it’s time to get serious about clearing out our closets and clearing out the clutter. Hopefully, you aren’t like me and have been working on this task for the past month or so.
In your adventures in de-cluttering, I’m sure you’ve found a few items you just aren’t ready part with. Maybe an old high school T-shirt with lots of sentimental value; a concert tee from a few years ago that has seen better days; or some other clothing item you know you don’t have use for, but can’t part with just yet.
If you find yourself in this situation (like I did while working through my piles of old concert tees and other such memorabilia), you are in luck! On January 17th, I will be hosting a workshop at the new Goodwill outlet store location, where we will be transferring these types of items onto embroidery hoops to create fun pieces of art for your home or office (or wherever you are decorating).
Goodwill Industries will be celebrating the relocation of its Outlet store to a new location on Arlington Road in Akron. From
11:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. on January 17th, we will be working to create unique fabric hoops with found fabric, as well as bringing new life to an old table and chair with a unique collage!
However, if you can’t make it on Saturday, the instructions for creating your own fabric hoop at home, can be found below.
I followed Katie’s instructions for creating fabric hoops (posted last August), but used old concert tees for mine!
Supplies Needed:
- Embroidery hoops – Mine are metal, but the wooden ones are usually easier to find
- Old T-shirts and scrap fabric
- Ribbon, bells, bows, anything else you have lying around for embellishment
- Hot glue
- Scissors
- Pen
Earlier this week, I went to my local Goodwill in search of embroidery hoops.
Next, I sifted through our mountainous pile of T-shirts (I’ll make a T-shirt quilt, one day!). If you don’t have a stockpile of T-shirts at your house, like we do at ours, be sure to check out the racks of them at the Goodwill when you are buying your embroidery hoops. In my search for the perfect T-shirt to use, I used the hoops as a guide to see which T-shirt would fit perfectly.
For my first hoop, a smaller one, I had a simple Foo Fighters T-shirt I wanted to use. Because of this, I decided to embellish the outside hoop a bit with some scrap fabric I had lying around. I cut this scrap fabric into strips, wrapped it around the outside hoop, hot gluing the fabric to the hoop as I went.
Once the fabric was all glued to the outside hoop, I measured the amount I would need from my Foo Fighters T-Shirt for the middle section of the hoop, being sure to leave an extra inch or two around the outside. After some careful measurements, I cut out my fabric. Then I laid it over the inside hoop, and secured it with the outside hoop.
For the second hoop, I decided to use an old Diamond Nights T-shirt that I’ve had since college. My college roommate and I were supposed to share this T-shirt forever, at least that’s what we told each other when we pooled our money to buy it at the show sophomore year, but somehow I ended up with it (thanks Taryn!). I wasn’t entirely set on only cutting enough for my second hoop, so I cut the front away from the back to save in case I ever want to add this piece to my T-shirt quilt.
I left the outside ring alone for this second hoop. The metal was just so cool! I may go back and spray paint it another color to refresh it, but for now I think it’s perfect.
The final step will be to figure out where to hang these up in my home! We have a pretty intense music corner in our living room, so these may end up next to our Ramones poster.
Creative note: As I was laying these two out to photograph them, I thought how cool it would be to make a 2D Solar System out of different sized hoops and fabrics and hang on a bedroom, playroom or classroom wall.
The best part about these fabric hoops is they are completely interchangeable! Say you have an unexplainable falling out with Dave Grohl one day, and never want to see a Foo Fighters’ logo hanging on your wall? Ditch that piece of the fabric hoop and replace it with a new one! Even the embellished bit around the outside hoop can be removed!
I have a few more hoops to decorate, but (thankfully) the possibilities are endless! How will you customize your own fabric hoop (on Saturday at the Goodwill outlet store, or in you own creative environment)?
Happy creating and hope to see you on Saturday!
A little bit about the Goodwill Outlet location and celebration on Saturday
Date: Saturday, January 17, 2015
Time: 11:00 a.m. – 1:00 p.m.
Location: 1400 S. Arlington Street, Suite 150 (Arlington Plaza), Akron, Ohio 44306