I like decorative pins — artists all over the internet are making really great designs! But I always worry that if I attach them to a jacket or bag they’ll fall off and I’ll lose them forever. If you saw my Desk Tour post, then you’ll know I found a solution for that! It was very simple — nothing more than an embroidery hoop and a piece of cloth.

I don’t know the artists for all of these, but I’ll have links to all the pins I do know at the end of this post!

However, this first attempt was far from perfect. I cut the fabric quite short around the back so it wouldn’t show at the front, but I don’t own a hot glue gun, so it wasn’t terribly secure. Adding or removing pins would cause the fabric to shift or lose tension. I do have a friend with a hot glue gun and I always meant to fix this up, and also make more hoops, but I kept forgetting. Until recently!

Awhile ago I got two new hoops at a craft chain called Michaels (the little one and the biggest one). The fabric I picked up at Walmart. The label on each bit of fabric (the colors were sold separately) said they were “fat quarters” which makes me giggle for some reason. Apart from a hot glue gun, to make these you’ll also need some nice sharp scissors and maybe some string depending on how you plan on hanging them. And also some kind of flat piece to press the fabric into the hot glue — I used a disposable chopstick for this.

I don’t have any progress pictures because I needed both hands to work on these and I didn’t want to ask my friend to stop playing Dragon Age, because it is a very important game that we both love, lol. But here are the steps of my process:

• Load the fabric in between the two parts of the hoop and tighten the screw at the top so the fabric is taut.
• Cut the fabric short until it is close to the hoop, but still long enough to tuck around inside. (You could also measure the fabric around the hoop and cut it before putting the fabric in, but I couldn’t be bothered.)
• Apply hot glue to the hoop, going little by little, and press the fabric into it somehow (fingers are not recommended for obvious reasons).
• Optional: loop a string around the screw at the top to help you hang it. I discovered when I was taking photos for this post that my hoops will fit over my hook of choice without string, which I didn’t realize with my first hoop. (For the record, I’m obsessed with all things Command Strips/Hooks for hanging things in my room.)
• Ta-da! You’re done!

To be honest, my hoops are kind of a mess inside. I didn’t cut the fabric very carefully — I probably could have cut it closer so it would lay flatter.

This excess fabric/my sloppy mess is super visible in the yellow hoop (which formerly held the gray fabric, hence the string). On the darker colors this doesn’t show much or at all. So maybe I wouldn’t recommend light colors for this if you’re not prepared to be super precise, but the fabric I bought is also cheap/thin so if you had thicker cloth you might also be able to get away with a light color. My friend suggested getting some nice beads and gluing them around the edge so you can’t see the ugliness.

My only other regret with this project is that I didn’t take better care lining up the creases in the fabric. (Because, let’s be honest, who is going to iron the fabric for a little project like this?) If I make more of these, I’ll do a better job at lining the creases up horizontally or vertically, because looking at the crooked creases kind of irritates me. But again, this is something that shows less on darker fabric.

I haven’t entirely decided which pins of mine are going on which hoop, but I know I want to bring the little one to my cubicle at work. The big polka dot one will hang in my room, and I can expand to the yellow one once I fix it up/need more pin space.

I’m very excited to collect more pins now! Are there any artists you recommend? And if you have any questions about this project, please let me know.

Pins Featured In This Post (That I Know The Source Of):

• Sea Bitch by Maya Kern
• Bioshock Infinite Vigors set
• Humanoid Pinkie Pie was drawn by my friend KingsDarga 5+ years ago. They don’t sell merch, but you can check out their art on tumblr or twitter!
• Chivalry is Dead set by asunnydisposish