Specimen Art: A Yo-Yo Craft

Fabric Yo-Yo’s are such a cute way to embellish your sewing projects!
In fact, they are so cute, why not showcase them in a frame?

That’s just what I did with this 4th of July Yo-Yo Art.

Yo-Yo’s don’t take much fabric or much time to make.
They’re a simple project that are great to work on when you’re on the go!
With that said, keep in mind that I did this tutorial in my trailer while camping this weekend.

Yep! They’re that easy!

Specimen Art: A Yo-Yo Craft

For this project I used the following supplies:

7″x7″ White Muslin
18″x4″ Liberty Blue Essential Dots fabric
18″x4″ Apple Bouquet for the Teacher School Days fabric
18″x4″ Cream Circle Fly a Kite fabric
18″x4″ Cream Floral Stars and Stripes fabric
18″x4″ Blue Dots Stars and Stripes fabric
18×4″ Red Stars Stars and Stripes fabric
1 large frame
scissors
glue gun
glue sticks
Large Quick Yo Yo Maker (optional)

The first thing you’ll want to do is determine how big the opening in your frame is.
After that you’ll need to decide how big you want your Yo-Yo’s to be and how many Yo-Yo’s will fit in your frame.

For example the opening of my frame is 7″x7″.
My Yo-Yo’s measured 1.8″ in diameter, so I was able to fit 25 Yo-Yo’s inside of my frame.

Depending on the size of your frame you may need more or less fabric Yo-Yo’s.

Now that we have the technical stuff out the way you can move on to the fun part – sewing your Yo-Yo’s together!

The Quick Yo-Yo Maker helps sewing Yo-Yo’s together even easier!

If you don’t have a Quick Yo Yo Maker, no worries!
Click here for a Fabric Yo-Yo Tutorial.

Lay your fabric out, cut out your circles and make Yo-Yo’s to your heart’s content!

Remove the glass from your frame.
My frame is repurposed, so I removed the lovely zebra chair print, as well.

Measure the cardboard piece in your frame and cut your white fabric accordingly.
Then simply wrap the cardboard in the white fabric, securing the edges with hot glue.

Insert the fabric wrapped fabric back into your frame and secure it with the tabs on the frame.

Now you have a beautiful blank canvas to work with.

At this point you can begin hot gluing your Yo-Yo’s to the fabric in your frame.
It would probably be a good idea to lay the Yo-Yo’s out and decide how you want them to look before you start gluing.

I didn’t use any kind of pattern.
I liked the look of gluing the Yo-Yo’s in a whimsical, haphazard type manner!

I am so excited about adding this Yo-Yo Specimen Art to my 4th of July decor!
It turned out so cute I might just keep it up all year!

Thanks so much Brittany! She always has the cutest ideas!

I am pretty sure that Brittany crafts 24/7 and she has a fun blog documenting all of the fun ideas she has. You definitely need to check her out at Craft Mischief!

And you can make so many fun things with Yo-Yo’s. I love my Yo-Yo Maker and The Ribbon Retreat sells them in many different sizes and shapes!

If you have great tutorials and a fun idea you would like to share on The Ribbon Retreat Blog,
please submit a project.

Have a wonderful day!