Embroidery Multimedia Art

This summer, my hubby, Aaron, decided to run a small soccer camp for some of the 7-year-old girls that will be on his team in the fall. It’s been a while since I’ve taught art classes and we thought it would be fun to add an hour of art to each day of camp. Then, to top off this already incredibly cool camp, Aaron decided to add in dessert adventures at the end of each day (walking around town, in search of the yummiest treat!).

The first art project we worked on was a multimedia piece that included embroidery, fabric collage, and painting. The idea for this project was inspired by the Kid Made Modern section at Target. I first saw these stretched burlap canvases and immediately thought about using them for embroidery. Burlap is loosely woven and makes for a very easy fabric to embroider for kids because they don’t have to work very hard to push a needle through the fabric.

One of my favorite art explorations right now is fabric collage. I love the texture of fabric pieces that have been applied to a canvas with Mod-Podge or acrylic gel medium. Because of the size of the canvas, I wanted to offer the kids another medium besides embroidery to include on their canvas for when they got tired of stitching. Fabric collage seemed like a fun addition!

When I spied these fun neon acrylic paints from Kid Made Modern, I decided to offer a full on multimedia art experience and include paints as well.

The kids started off by drawing a design on the burlap with a sharpie. I explained that they would be embroidering their design, so to keep the lines simple enough to stitch.

I helped each child thread their needles with the embroidery floss (tying it to the needle and adding a knot at the bottom) and showed them how to start from the underside of the canvas.

The kids caught on really quickly how to embroider along their drawings. Some of them created long stitches (which is faster), while some decided to use super small stitches and took a while to go over their design. I also offered them beads to add to the thread once they got the hang of it. The artist in the photo below happened to draw a necklace and was thrilled to add real beads!

For the fabric collage, they used pre-cut fabric shapes and applied them to the canvas (under and over the fabric) with Mod-Podge and a paint brush.

For the final medium, they used the acrylic paints to add more color and depth to their work.

The multi-media layers of this project made for super fun and interesting artworks. The girls loved it and, had it not been for the upcoming soccer activity (this was a soccer camp, after all), they could have worked on them for probably another hour!

The final pieces…

These turned out so well and were so fun to make. This would be a great project for a birthday party or other event, at least for kids over age 5. For younger kids, you can try a simple embroidery project without drawing a design, just winging it. Or try the fabric collage and painting as a combo.

If you do try this out, let me know how it goes!