DIY Embroidery Necklace Pendant Tutorial for Beginners

Keep reading to learn how to make an awesome embroidered necklace pendant of your own with this easy to follow DIY embroidery necklace tutorial!

Aren’t embroidery necklaces so fun? I just love making them— and as a result have way too many, haha!

But it’s so hard to stop making them when there are so many different design options! The possibilities are literally endless— if you can imagine it, you can make it into a necklace.

I’ve made flowers, space scenes, rainbows, animals, and all sorts of other embroidered images as well as some fun abstract ones.

Which I guess is ok because they’re really fun presents — perfect for a customized Mother’s Day or Valentine’s Day gift! Or just to show someone you were thinking about them. <3

This DIY embroidery necklace pendant tutorial is designed for the absolute beginner, so I’ll be showing how to make a simple heart. You could easily switch out a heart for any other shape you like, though. 

And once you’re comfortable with the basics, I definitely encourage you to explore other stitches and designs you’d like to try. Seriously, it’s addicting, haha!

DIY Embroidery Necklace Pendant Tutorial for Beginners

Gather your supplies.

You’ll need:

• a metal necklace pendant
• a necklace chain that matches your pendant
• small piece of thin cardboard (like from a cereal box)
• fabric
• embroidery floss
• needle
• scissors
• pencil
• small embroidery hoop
• strong glue (I personally LOVE gorilla glue— I use it all the time, haha)
• hot glue gun with hot glue stick
• clamps to hold the pendant together while the glue sets (I use binder clips but clothespins would also work… or you could place something somewhat heavy on it if you don’t have any clamps)

Ok, now we’re ready to get going!

Prepare the pendant parts. (Try saying that 5 times fast!)

First, trace your pendant on the cardboard. Cut out the shape a little smaller than the lines you made.

Check and see if it will fit in the pendant. If it’s too big, trim it down until it fits. Be careful not to trim too much because you want it to fit snuggly. You definitely don’t want gaps between your design and the walls of the pendant.

Once you have your piece of cardboard cut to the right size, lay it on the fabric. Very lightly make a few marks on the fabric just a smidge away from the edge of the cardboard disc. These marks will help you know where and how big to make your design.

Lightly draw a line about 1/4 inch away from the edge of the cardboard disc, too.

Set the disc aside for now.

Draw your heart (or whatever design you’re doing) in the center of your circle. Keep your marks light and be sure to pay attention to the sizing marks you made.

Embroider your design.

Put your fabric in your embroidery hoop tightly.

Cut a piece of embroidery floss, about arm’s length. Embroidery floss is made up of 6 individual strands— you’ll need to remove 2 of the strands from your cut piece to use for embroidering.

Thread the 2 strands in your needle, letting several inches of the thread hang past the needle. 

Tie a knot at the end of the thread and cut off the excess string. You’re ready to start embroidering!

Starting from the back side of the fabric, stick the needle through the point of the heart.

Put your needle back through the fabric at the area where the heart starts to curve and pull the thread all the way through.

Make another large stitch next to your first one.

And keep on going until your heart is all filled in!  You may need to adjust your stitches to follow the curves at the top of the heart (as shown in the pictures below).

If you don’t have enough thread to complete your heart, just tie it off and put more thread in your needle.

You should finish with your needle hanging out of the back side of the fabric.

To tie off the thread, slip the needle under a few strands of thread and then make a knot. Be careful not to pull too hard on the stitches that you looped your thread through, otherwise, the stitches will look uneven and wonky on the front side. 

I like to make one extra knot just to make sure everything is secure. 

Cut off the excess thread.

Assemble the necklace pendant “innards”.

Now you get to remove the fabric from the embroidery hoop! 

Cut out your embroidered design along the circle you marked earlier.

You’ll need to attach your embroidered design to the cardboard disc before you can insert it into your blank pendant.

To do this, lay the circle of fabric facedown and center the disc on top of it. Make sure that any designs on the cardboard are facing the backside, which is currently facing up. You don’t want any images from the cardboard showing through the fabric and distracting from your embroidered design.

Put a tiny bit of hot glue on the edge of the disc and fold the excess fabric over onto it. You really don’t need very much, so try to be very light-handed with the hot glue. You don’t want big, uneven bumps all over the back.

It’s a good idea to double check that your design is centered in the front as you do this.

Now do the same thing on the side directly opposite to the first spot you glued.

And repeat in between the first two spots…

And then the spot opposite that one.

Keep going until all the loose fabric is glued back.

Nicely done!

Glue the embroidered disc to the necklace pendant.

It’s all starting to come together! 

To attach the embroidered disc to the pendant, you’ll need a good strong glue. I’m a big fan of gorilla glue— the clear, non-foaming kind.

Gorilla glue needs a little water to fully work on non-porous surfaces– like our metal necklace pendant.

Dampen the inside of the pendant by getting your finger a little wet and rubbing it along the inside of the pendant. You don’t want a lot of water— just a smidge will do.

Squeeze some of the glue onto the center of the pendant. You’ll want a thin circle of glue that doesn’t reach all the way to the edge. The glue will spread out when you clamp the embroidered disc to the pendant, so you need to leave some room for it to spread. Otherwise, it’ll squish out of the edges and make a mess on top of ruining your awesome embroidery necklace.

Place your embroidery design in the pendant and clamp them together for at least 2 hours. It takes 24 hours for the glue to fully cure, so I usually just leave the clamps on the whole time.

Once the glue is set, remove the clamps and put your finished embroidery necklace pendant on the chain. And you’re done! 

You just made a super awesome, totally original embroidery necklace!

What kind of design would you like to have on an embroidery necklace? Let me know in the comments!