Naked Walls

This project started out after several unsuccessful attempts to find some sort of wall art to put in our guest bedroom. I didn't want to drop a load of dough on one of those metal art pieces, or go through the pain of making a funky headboard. So what does one do when they're stumped? Go to their local Hobby Lobby and take a stroll around!

Wood embroidery hoops are seriously old school, and after doing several embroidery projects with plastic hoops, I'll never use the wooden ones again! However, these wooden oldies are super cheap, paintable, and by golly a perfect way to mimic those metal art pieces I see everywhere now.

After grabbing several hoops in a variety of sizes, I headed home to melt a few ideas together and get my craft on.

Here's my inspiration for the artwork-

Here is my inspiration for the actual room decor/color scheme-

After rifling through my fabric stash, I found a few pieces that would work. I'm not much for animal prints, so I traded it in for an old world map pattern that was on one of the pillows I knabbed from Ikea.

To get the maps I simply traced map outlines (with a fine tip Sharpie) on the tea-stained linen; I chose the map of Scotland and the NC outer banks coastline because they're cool looking (and I'm in love with Scotland and originally from NC).

Print out what map you'd like to use, tape it to a window on a sunny day, tape your fabric on top, and trace your little heart out.





After configuring the hoops in a design on your floor, place the fabric randomly in the hoops (you could glue the fabric to the back of the hoop itself, however I might change my color scheme in the future and wanted to be able to switch out the fabric).

When it came to attaching them, I had limited ways to do such, but ended up using a combo of screwing and glueing (E6000 cement) them into place. I didn't have small screws, so I used what I had and hoped it wouldn't look too terrible (i.e. use smaller screws so the wood doesn't split so badly!).

Wait for the glue to dry, hang, and BOOM- $6.49 wall art!
No more naked wall!