 Hey everybody, it's Sam at Mixed at Craft. Thank you for watching my tutorial today. I'm going to show you how you can use your embroidery hoops to make really nice pieces of home decor. So this is just a nice little kind of welcome plaque, I guess, and it's just going to hang it in my hallway. I've got all these lovely leaves to decorate it. So I've gone with an autumn theme because that is the season that is now approaching us, although outside it feels like it already is. And then I've just done welcome. It's really easy to do. You should be able to do this with most of the supplies that you already have. And yeah, just enjoy it. It's lots of fun. I've loved every minute of making this, so hopefully you're enjoying my video. So let me show you how I made it. Okay, so this is the magazine. So it's issue 177 Papercraft Essentials and the embossing folder. And then you get the die. So you get the outline. So it's the outline edge die. And then you get the inner vein die. So this is the one with all the details. So I'm going to be showing you how to use those two. I won't be using the embossing folder today because I've obviously the project that I'm doing. But let's start. So this is how I work. So a lot of the time I prepare my videos and I do a lot of this stuff off camera. And I just say you need 10 leaves or something. I don't show you how to do them. But because of the project I'm doing, and that part is really quick, I can spend more time doing all these kind of detailed pieces. So this is my mess. This is me being creative. So you don't have to have your leaves this color. There can be any color you want. But obviously with it being autumn now, or we're coming into autumn, it feels like it even though it is still officially summer. Oh hey, I'm obviously sticking with those colors. So I've got some oranges, I've got yellows, and I've got browns. Now the brown or yeah, the darker color. I've used just craft card. So this craft card is actually quite good because it's got two slightly different sides. So that one's a little bit more orangey. That one's more gray. So again, I can just flip it and I'll get two different kind of tones. So I'm going to be using some of that. And then I'm going to also use some of the, actually now I'm going to do, I'm going to do another yellow and I'm going to do some orange. So you can see the colors. There they are, you know, without being distressed. So you don't even have to distress them. But I'm going to show you the different kind of ways that I like to, yeah, distress things a little. So first of all, you want to die cut your frame. And then you're going to die cut both again together to give you that detail. The nice thing when you're working with smaller dies, is you don't have to worry about getting your big die machine out. So I'm just using my little one here. Okay, so there it is. First of all, just cut as a frame. And it's really lovely. The detail in this die is just, yeah, really, really nice. Now I'm going to pop that die down again, but I'm going to pop this in between. Now you may want to just tack it down with a little bit of tape, just to keep it in place. So you want to make sure that you have a border all the way around the detailed piece. Okay, so that one there. I think that's enough to hold it in place. Again, I always put this little shim on my die machine. It just seems to, I guarantee it cuts first time. I don't have to run it through. So obviously, everybody's is different. I shouldn't really be doing it on this filthy mat, but anyway. Okay, so now you get this detail. So you just, all the pieces just fall out straight away. It does cut beautifully, like so. Okay, now you can cut this using some double-sided sticky sheets and stick the sticky sheet on here first and cut it. I'm just going to pop some glue on the back of my hand. Obviously, if you have sensitive skin, then I don't recommend you do that. Otherwise, just use a precision tip glue. And then I'm just going to, don't matter if I get any over the top because it will dries clear. And then you just stick that over the top. Okay. And there you have a really lovely, very detailed die cut. But I don't want to keep my night that. Obviously, you can. They do still look lovely like that. What I'm going to do now is distress it. So I've just got a brown ink here. Now I do have the blending brushes and I love these. Absolutely love them. But I just find for something like this, when you want to get a real dark bit just on kind of little points of something, I find it's better to still use that. But I'll show you both ways. So this way here, just go around like so. So I'll do that one half with the brush. And then the other half, I always kind of dab off it there and then go in. And I just get a much more, you can see, intense look. And that's what I'm going for for this. I'm just going to go around and just get a little bit more on there. And then I'm just brushing it over the top. Like so. And it just brings out all the detail even more. Okay, so that's how I've got these ones. And then just to finish it off, if I bring these up here, can you see there's a little bit of gold? Just kind of, there we go. Just that shimmer. And all I've got here is these are really old. These are just little rub-on metallic. It's just the same as Gilding Wax. I've got them in the charity shop. But basically, you just get, I always use this one here. And then just rub a bit onto my mat. And then just literally brush it over. So now it just highlights. You've still got the brown distressed colour, but it just highlights those areas. And when it hits the light, you get that lovely gold effect. And I just think it looks really nice. I might put a little bit more on that one there, actually. That's how I've done that. And that's exactly the same way with these, just using different colours. So that's using the yellowy colour and then using the orange. So I will speed the video up and do those bits in a moment. And then the plain ones is exactly the same way, because I just thought it was nice just to have a little bit of a, you know, a variation. So I'm just going to take out just the frame. So exactly the same again. Just bringing in my brown. And then just kind of catch the ends, go all the way around, so you get the darkest, you know, of the colour hitting there. And then if you do have any kind of slight lines, just very quickly brush over the whole thing until you kind of blend it out and mix it in like so. Because you still want to keep the yellow colour, but it just gives you, it's almost like it's on fire, it just gives you a really nice frame without it having a frame. Like it does really show off the outer edges now of that die cut. And then again, I'm just going to use some of my gilding wax here just to touch the edges. And there we go again. If I just bring it out there you can see, just get that real nice little shine on the edges. So yeah, I'm going to do a few more of these because I do want quite a few for this embroidery hoop. I would rather it be quite full and then if I've got any left over I can keep them for a card. So yeah, I've got, how many have I got here? I need to do more of these. I think I've got enough of the plain now. I'm going to do some more of these in the orange and the yellow. Okay, so now I'm all cleaned up and I've got everything, well, in terms of my leaves, I've got it all ready. And again, let me just bring them up because the lights got really, we just had an awful weather and it's been raining, but you can see now just how lovely that one there is a bit more distressed. That one there, look at it. They just look really, really nice. So they're already set. Okay, so I've got an eight and a half inch diameter embroidery hoop. This was literally a couple of pounds from the charity shop. So you get them, they come like that and that will be screwed tighter so it doesn't come out. Just unscrew it and the middle hoop will come out. I've got my mesh here which I'm just going to sit over the smaller hoop. Okay, so just make sure it covers it because you'll cut away any excess. Then you pop your larger hoop over the top and it will make it all nice and taut. You can put it a little bit more if you want to like so and then you just want to twist this here and it will tighten and again as it's tightening you can pull this around a bit more if you want it, you know, if it is gaping at all. But it usually will keep it nice and taut when you bring it in there but now that's quite bouncy. Now I'm just going to go around and just trim off the excess. Okay, then turn it over and you've got that all ready. So now you've got this nice base to be able to start building up your seam. So I have just started pulling a few bits together. I've got these little wooden kind of cut up twigs here which I brought from the works a few weeks back now. I've got some buttons just things that are all kind of gold and bronze and rose gold and just that autumn kind of colour I guess. I've got embossing powder here because I may dump some down and then heat blast it. So I've got copper embossing powders, paper mania and then I've got the rose gold wow one. I've got my little draw of feathers because I thought some of these may well look quite nice just kind of nestled in. So I've got those. I have these bits here if you remember when I got those anybody that is watching that follows and I thought some of these little sprigs could look quite nice again as just more texture. And then I have all these pieces so I picked these up from the home bargains and initially I was going to do wedding cards but that's just gone amiss. So I thought these are going to look lovely to have as my what I plan to do is have these running through the centre because this one sits perfectly over the top. I'm going to fray all of the edges okay so I'm not really going to cut too much off and then I'm going to have my kind of I don't know whether to have just welcome because I think this would be quite nice to have in the hall so just have welcome there and then all the leaves built up around it. So I've just got here some garden twine I've got this red one here as well because these would be nice to make the hook so I'm just kind of getting everything together and then I can decide what I'm going to do and then I have this very large glass kind of I don't know what you would call it actually anyway bowl with a handle but it's full of old scrabble pieces I collect them as you can see and they're great for doing these kind of home decor pieces so I'm thinking I'm going to dump this all out and look for the letters to make and spell out welcome or might even have home welcome autumn I need to have a little think about it because I'm not entirely sure and obviously I need to clear my desk to be able to tip all of these out I might just do on the carpet but yeah that's what I plan to do but you can just die cut something these may well end up being too small and might end up wanting something bigger so might end up cutting something on my cricket machine or using my dies I need to again have a little look so do have the large stamping up ones as well so I might well use those but I'm going to lay everything out first of all and I would say that's the best thing for you to do kind of get an idea of how you want things to look so with my leaves I plan in my head I'm going to have a cluster up here and a cluster down here you can just do one down here you could do them going all the way around you know there are so many lovely ways to to do this so let's have a little look okay so I'm going to go for a something up here and something down here so first of all I'm going to get my glue gun all warmed up and I'm going to just roughly cut but obviously I don't want that much hanging over the edge but I do want enough to have that kind of frayed look so let's do let's do that for the minute and then I'm just going to start pulling this all apart okay so I've changed up a little bit afraid these but I'm going to have them all here and then I'm going to have a big bow I think keep changing my mind I think they just need to be a little bit more kind of like that well I quite like it something about that I like and that's the nice thing about this is you can do so many cool things I'm not sure whether or end up using bits like this I might have a few twigs maybe I could do something with them on the edges here I think if I start curling all the edges up and things like that I think it's going to look really good I'm going to just play around with a bow okay so I'm going to go for this bow this is a wired ribbon which I've had for ages I have used it once before in a project but it's nice because obviously this isn't ever going to be flattened unless it goes you know obviously I put it in storage but you can really shape the bow so I've just done that one and I know it kind of you can't really see it too well but in the in person it does show up quite nicely I think I'm just going to go for it and get it stuck in it's stuck down and yeah then I can do this I'm going to stick this first I'm going to use my hot glue and I'm just going to attach it to the sides here so actually I'm just going to put my because you don't want to melt the mesh so I'm going to pop a piece there and again there and obviously with the hot glue you've got a little bit of wiggle room make sure I've got it even I need to come across a little bit there we go and then this one here okay so now I don't really want to change it because I like the kind of formation that I've got in terms of I think I've got a nice equal amount of the color coming off so I'm just going to have to carefully kind of lift each layer like this there we go and again with these ones I'm going to add some foam adhesive this will stick really well to the net without melting you know or weakening it you know and the glue just maybe dripping through so I'm going to plus it does give it a little bit of dimension and I'm going to just kind of curl up the the kind of edges here because you can always flatten them again if they're a bit too much but I think it is going to help the overall look so we pop that one there and just go underneath and just make sure that's all stuck so I'm going to put this on high speed now and slowly work my way through this you may see me change a few things along the way but I'll talk you through that at the end everything down let me just take this off because I was playing around and I needed to stress and show you how I've done my letters so this is what I've done I love it it just looks so nice it's got a mix of these like plastic gold covered sprigs it's got all of the obviously the other leaves and I've stuck my wired bow down I've put a button in the middle there which was just from my stash I'm going to add a nice handle with you all in a moment and then obviously you saw me stick that down so what I've gone ahead and done I've decided I'm not going to use the scrabble pieces I don't think they quite work with it so I've got this is an old this is the x-cut folk alphabet dies but they've got a nice shape to them so I've gone die cut them in the craft card for the top and then I've gone and die cut it all again in some brown fun foam okay just to give it some dimension so what I'm going to do is I'm going to stick all of my each letter so there's the craft card letter onto the other one underneath but what I'm going to do is offset them slightly make sure I've got them right away because they are all slightly a bit different but I'm going to offset it just slightly so you get a bit of the darker brown behind so it almost frames it but then I'm going to distress it again and I'm going to add a little bit of gilding wax so I'm going to clear all this away bringing my pink mat and you'll see me do that I'll do it put it on high speed because again you know the process now but I'll come back and show you in more detail okay so just stress them all exactly the same way as I done the leaves you can just see the gilding wax there just glowing glowing just kind of shining there as it is the light and there's the foam on the back so now when I sit these on here and you will see this much better in the photos because I really don't think my camera is doing this justice today because I think this looks really really lovely so I'm going to spell out welcome like so because I've got that brown thumb foam behind it and I just distressed it a bit it really does lift it from the the background there so I'm going to get that stuck down now I need to be very careful on what I use because hot glue is just going to ooze and you're going to see it and I want to make but obviously wet glue I need to make sure it's really going to stick so I'm going to go for my tacky glue whether that's the right choice or not I don't know but because it's tacky it should stick really well to this so again I'm going to speed this up and hopefully it will work okay so there's that now stuck down can you see how it's nicely raised off the surface and you can again just see all that gilding wax catching in the light now I'm not sure whether I want to do something here I feel like it needs like a couple of circles or something but I think I don't know if they're going to look the right thing to have there those balls don't look right I don't think I mean it's almost like I'm starting a little fire or something there I don't know if that's really right there either so I'm going to have a little think about that and they could maybe work it needs something but yeah I'll get back to you okay so I'm going to use the scrap of what I cut off from this here so this is a piece here it's taken me ages you know it's taken me longer to think about these two little pieces and it has the whole things I wouldn't have had some dinner just sat down for a bit still thinking about it and then came up and just thought no I'm going to shove those there so that's what I'm doing so I'm just cutting a kind of square again am I balling all of this if you want to be more precise and measure you can but because I'm going to be freeing anyway so I'd already gone and just frayed all of the edges there I'm going to pop it stick it down there and then I've cut the button loop off the back just so it's nice and flush and that's just going to stick over the top it just needed something I did try some more leaves some small leaves things like that but I just yeah I just wasn't feeling it so I'm just picking away it's really easy to start it off and just pulling out all the look that I kind of the weave there the threads just to create yeah that little bit of frayed edge on it so I'm just going to do this one okay so there is my finished hanging embroidery hoop and I absolutely adore this it's ended up differently to how I thought but I'm so happy with the end result I've just stuck those both down as I just mentioned and I also went under here as well with some bead of glue as well just to keep that all secure added my handle which is just on the back the back isn't pretty at all but for me it doesn't matter it's not going to be seeing so it's going to go against the wall so it's going to like hang off hang off something in the hallway so I'm not worried about the back but obviously if you are putting this on your door or somewhere where there's glass people can see both sides and yeah you may want to do that a bit differently to myself but I love this I hope you do too I hope it's inspired you to look at your supplies in a different way and you know make some nice home decor pieces because these are so fun to make and so cheap so inexpensive that would make a lovely gift make this Christmas themed you know you can give that to your neighbour or you know your friends whether McRafers they are really really fun to make so yeah hope it's inspired you hope you have a go and thank you for watching so give me a thumbs up if you've enjoyed today and subscribe to my channel so you get to see more thanks for watching bye