Embroidery Hoop Organizer

Over the summer we used framed to-do lists for the girls’ chores in the morning.  Things like putting dishes away after breakfast, brushing teeth, and a different cleaning job every day (wash windows, dust, etc)  Having the list behind glass lets them mark each item with a dry erase marker every day.

Now that school has started I wanted to dress things up a little, and I also wanted a way to keep the dry erase markers easily accessible–and not lost! 

So here’s my little organizer made from an embroidery hoop!  I bought a bag of these gems a couple of years ago from Goodwill. Most of them were small (like 4 inches), but there was one 9 inch one in there.

I bought 2 fat quarters from the craft store and cut the background fabric into a 12 inch square.  The pocket fabric I cut to 8.5 by 4.5 inches.  Iron over 1/2 inch on each side of the pocket.  

Sew across one edge–this will be the top of the pocket.

Put the background fabric into the hoop and tighten it.  Pin the pocket where it will go, then take the fabric out of the hoop and sew on the pocket.  Sew two vertical lines, creating 3 sections of the pocket.

Put the whole thing back into the embroidery hoop and tighten it as much as you can.  Trim the extra fabric and run hot glue around it.  If the fabric got pulled out of the hoop, there’s no way you’d be able to get it back in there again, so this will prevent that from happening.

Now fill your pockets with useful items and hang it up somewhere! 

To make the chore lists match I stretched fabric around the cardboard backing in each frame.  A small piece of double sided tape holds the paper list to the fabric just fine.  Each list also got a small fabric rosette glued to the glass on the front.

I have no idea if it will make the kids more inclined to do their chores happily in the morning, but I know I like looking at it!