My No-Wreath Door (TUTORIAL)

I have been accused of being anti-wreath. I admit it, I used the term once in a comment on my FB page and a good friend called me out.  I am here to say, it was a bad choice of words. I am not anti-wreath. I do not discriminate against a door based on it’s attire, adornment, or the door handle’s left/right orientation.   Doors are cool.  I simply don’t want a wreath on my own, at this time. I want something different. Something other-than.  I recognize wreaths as attractive, but I am not attracted to them. Come on, I own one wreath.  It stays up year round in my kitchen. I represent, see? Wreaths simply aren’t my thing, and I’ve been looking for something else for a while. I mean, I do want something snazzy on the door. Inspiration hit me a few months ago when I saw a monogram hoop on my cousin’s door. I was blown away by it’s simplistic beauty and  I-could-make-that-ness.  It was simple, it was gorgeous. It was ME!! It was not a wreath.
Making things is my gig. I’m all about the DIY. Also, I like to save money because I rarely have any.  This great adornment fit both criteria, since I have an embarrassing amount of fabric and crafting things on hand.
I did not buy a thing. I scrounged and found the following:
Large embroidery hoop Cardboard to fit inside hoop
Burlap or other fabric of your choice (be sure that it is somewhat translucent to see your design through it)
Pencil
Permanent Marker
Spray adhesive or other craft glue Paint Beginner Google skillz A door, or heck…a wall
First I googled “Letter S” and chose images only. I looked for one that I liked and kept it on my screen as my example.  You would be amazed at the options that come up when you google a letter. Who knew? Not I. Next, I cut a circle out of my cardboard that would fit snugly inside the INNER HOOP. Now for full disclosure, the hoop that I used was missing the inner portion of the hoop. It was used last year for another craft when I went out on a limb and tried to make… wait for it… a WREATH. It bombed. You never saw a tutorial on that for good reason.  Really, I am no good a wreaths. So I made my circle fit inside the OUTER HOOP because I didn’t have an inner one. Hopefully you have your inner hoop and don’t need to worry about all that yourself. Or, maybe you are better at wreaths than me and I just gave you the idea to get two decorations out of one embroidery hoop set.  Have fun with that.
Take your cardboard circle and start drawing your letter.  I say go with pencil, and be sure to find your center. Personally, I freehand everything.  I am a henna artist. I don’t even use patterns for my sewing. Patterns intimidate me, but you may feel better about printing your letter and using it as a stencil. Even better, print your letter, cut it out and glue it to your cardboard. That would work, too.  Once you’ve got the idea in pencil, go for a final outline with a marker that you will be able to see through your fabric.

Next you need to attach your fabric.  Yes, I still dig burlap. I do not care if it is overdone, trendy, dated.  I loved burlap before the trend and I still do.  So there. I’m using it.  I fixed the burlap to the circle with spray adhesive because I had it on hand. I am too cheap to have gone out and bought it, if it were not sitting in a box waiting for a purpose. I could have used school glue, tacky glue or even a glue stick to get the fabric secured to the circle. It doesn’t really matter.  Glue an X across the entire circle to start from. Lay your fabric centered and press it down by hand from the center out.  Let it sit for the glue to dry. It may surprise you to know that I don’t like to paint. I don’t do well with brushes.  Yes, I’m creative. I do henna and many other similar things. My art styles are done with cones and applicator bottles. I like pens and pencils.  Brushes and I simply make messes. Feel free to use a marker again for your outline. I did!  Take your time to get clean lines.  Don’t rush. Now you fill in your large spaces. I actually liked the contrast of the black outline. It’s not what I originally expected to do, but it grew on me. It is quite possible that having a brush in hand caused me to think of ways to minimize it’s use.  Either way, I left the black marker outline exposed and simply filled in the larger areas with my dark blue paint.  You can really use many different types of paint.  This is left overs from my shutters. Yes, that would be exterior house paint.  Don’t go spend money! You surely have some paint sitting around. Let your paint dry.
The last step is to put the hoop on.  I now slide the inner hoop BEHIND the fabric to fit the cardboard into it, then add the outer loop over the top.  Because I didn’t have the inner loop, I actually added 4 beads of hot glue around the edges of my outer loop, after inserting the cardboard,  to keep it secure. That’s it!!! Try it out. Just be careful not to let it make the wreaths in the neighborhood feel inferior. That’s not cool.