DIY Embroidery Hoop Ornaments with Free Printables

These DIY embroidery hoop Christmas ornaments are quick and easy to make and will look absolutely beautiful on your Christmas tree.

Christmas music is one of my favorite things to decorate with at Christmas. Of course I love to listen to Christmas music, but I also think it’s visually beautiful.

There’s just something about sheet music that draws me in, especially at Christmastime.

A few years ago I created some sweet Christmas music art printables that I really love and this year I decided to create an ornament version. 

After considering a few options for my Christmas music ornaments, I decided to make them using mini embroidery hoops and it turned out to be the perfect choice.

Mini embroidery hoops are absolutely amazing for making DIY ornaments. You can buy them for cheap, they are easy to work with, and they’re the perfect size for Christmas ornaments.

I absolutely love how these ornaments turned out and they were super quick and easy to make. Today I’m sharing everything you need to make your own including the free printables I used, easy step-by-step instructions, and a video tutorial. 

This post contains affiliate links which means if you make a purchase after clicking a link I will earn a small commission but it won’t cost you a penny more.  Click here to see my full disclosure policy.

I recently made a really fun new set of DIY ornaments using embroidery hoops. They are photo ornaments with a built-in voice recorder and if you’re looking for a sentimental ornament or gift, these are perfect.

Materials

• 3″ embroidery hoops – these are super cheap, especially when you buy them in bulk.
• Printable designs printed on cardstock – I made printable Christmas carol designs for my own ornaments and have shared them below so you can also print them out to use. But you could also frame fabric scraps, wide ribbon, or even use other free Christmas printables. I think these would look really cute with the free nutcracker printables I recently shared.
• Scissors
• Trim – Mini pine cones, evergreen branches, jingle bells, ribbon, or anything else you want to use to trim your ornaments
• Hot glue gun
• Baker’s twine or other string for hanging

How to make Embroidery Hoop Ornaments

Printable Ornament Designs

I designed four printable designs to use for my ornaments using four of my favorite Christmas songs: Away in a Manger, Joy to the World, Silent Night, and The First Noel.

The background for each ornament is the actual music to that song and can be printed with either red or black lettering. 

Click here to download the four free printable designs. (You will be taken to a folder where you can choose which colors and designs you want to download and print.)

If you are using my free printable designs for this, download them and print them out in 3.5″x5″ size on cardstock. They are already circles and are designed to work perfectly with 3″ embroidery hoops.

If you aren’t using my printable designs, you can also make similar ornaments using family photos or almost any other Christmas printable. The process is mostly the same.

Once you have your ornament designs printed on cardstock, cut them out leaving a small white border around the printed design.

You want the cut-outs to be slightly larger than the inside of your embroidery hoops so that there is some overhang to hold your design in place. 

Adding the embroidery hoop

After your design is cut out, loosen the outer ring of your embroidery hoop and separate the two parts of the hoop. 

Before making my ornaments, I experimented a bit with whether they looked better with the cardstock behind the hoop or in front of it. Both were nice, but the version with the cardstock behind looked smoother and also had more dimension so that is the method I decided to use.

Place your design face up on your work surface and center the inner hoop around your design so that it’s lined up exactly the way you want it.

Gently fold the edges of your design around your hoop. It may help to make a few small cuts around the edges of the circle to make it easier for the paper to fold smoothly.

Now flip your hoop and paper over so the paper is on top. Make sure the design is still aligned the way you want it. 

Take the outer hoop and make sure the pin is loosened as much as possible. Slide the outer hoop gently around the inner hoop and folded edges of your design. 

Tighten the pin to hold the design firmly in place. then flip your ornament over.  

Adding the trim

The last step is to add a few festive details. I added tiny pine cones and berries and some tiny evergreen branches to jazz my ornaments up.

I didn’t have any faux greenery that was quite small enough, so I just snipped some little sprigs off some larger evergreen picks.

You can attach them to your hoops using a hot glue gun. 

The final step is to tie some baker’s twine around the top of the ornament for hanging. 

These ornaments look beautiful on their own and they also look amazing on our Christmas tree. 

Video Tutorial