String Art Tutorial

It’s been a while since I’ve shared a craft with you! Not that I haven’t been making any, but I forget to document them throughout the process. I made a bunch of stuff for the Holidays including all the crafts I did that were sponsored by JoAnn Fabric and Craft Store for the TV Segment back in December, but never really got around t0 posting them.

One of the things I did make for a Christmas gift for a friend of mine was a little cute string art heart. It was small (like 6 inches by 6 inches) but it turned out really good! When I gave it to her she decided we should have a crafting weekend (that is our “thing” we do together) so she could make something else for herself too! And of course I was up for it to actually make myself something too!

I brought the supplies and told her all she needed to do was print off the image or pattern she wanted to do. I show up at her house and with no discussion about it, we both printed the exact same thing to do our string art with. The great state of Wisconsin! 🙂 At first I had plans to do a heart around the Madison area but then I decided I just wanted a plain jane one, which is more my style.

It’s really not hard to do it takes a little time and you need to do the whole “stringing” part in one sitting, but it doesn’t take a whole lot of “skill”.
String Art Tutorial
Materials:

• Soft (non hardwood) wood
• Shape print out
• Hammer
• Short Nails ( I used ones similar to these)
• String/thread (I used something similar to this)
• *Optional small needle nose pliers

Instructions/Steps:

• First things first, you need to find a piece of wood. Obviously whatever size you want but it’s also important to find a piece that’s not too hard as you’re nailing in a million little nails, you want to make it easy on yourself. Lots of craft stores actually sell cheap low quality (which is ok in this case) wood that is soft and perfect for these types of projects.
• Next you need to find whatever shape you want to do. The first time I did a simple heart shape. For this one, I did the outline of Wisconsin. It’s really up to you. Pinterest is filled with ideas for this. Some of my faves right now are this, this, and this. Print out whatever shape or words you choose and then cut your image out.
• Using one small piece of tape, place your paper shape cut outs on your wood. Begin pounding in nails just along the outer edge of your chosen shape. You want to try to space them as evenly as you can, but no need to drive yourself crazy.

• Sometimes it does get hard to pound in all the nails without pounding your fingers, especially when you get into tight areas (like the Door County of Wisconsin). If that is the case, you can use a needle nose pliers to hold the nail steady and in place while you hammer it in.
  
• You want to pound the nails in far enough that they’re really “in there” but leave enough of the nail exposed so you a) don’t poke through the back of your wood, depending how thick your piece is and b) have enough nail to wrap your string around it several times.
  
• Once you have surrounded your entire shape with nails, carefully remove the paper shape and tape. You’ll be left with just the nail outline of your shape(s).
  
• Now comes the part that once you start, you can’t stop until you’re done. So take a bathroom break and get a snack 🙂 But for real, because you’re really just wrapping the string around the nails over and over and over again, pulling it tight(not tooooo tight) throughout the whole time, you can’t stop or it will all unravel.
• Start by just tying a double knot with the string around one of the nails. Any nail, doesn’t matter, and you just cut the “tail” of the string off close to the nail rather than trying to get the end knotted perfectly around the nail. Now just start wrapping the string up, down, across, sideways, backwards, upside-down (kidding just running out of directions here) around the nails. Basically just weaving it all around the nails. Here’s a close up:
  *As you can see, I’m not tying anything off, just continuously wrapping the string around and back and forth between the nails. You want to keep the string tight so it doesn’t unravel or come off the nails but not soooo tight that it puts too much pressure on the nails that they pull out. This will make more sense once you’re doing it.
• Just keep going until it looks “full” enough and even to your liking. Once you are done just tie off the string on one of the nail and again, don’t worry about the “tail” just double knot and then cut off very close to the nail.
• Then you’re done!! Hang on your wall and admire your handy work 🙂
  

This is a really fun and pretty simple craft that can be done in an afternoon and produces such a cute and customized finished product. If you have kids who you are worried about them with nails and a hammer, you could even do the outline of a shape in nails and then let them do the “stringing”.

I hope this tutorial was easy to follow but if you have any questions, feel free to ask away and I’ll do my best to help!

We will have a few other crafts to share soon as we were asked again by JoAnn Fabric and Craft Stores and Madison ABC affiliate WKOW 27  to come back and do another on air spring crafting special! Could not be happier to be asked again and have the great opportunity to make some really adorable stuff again!!! If you’re in the area tune in on the morning of Sunday, March 6th to WKOW 27 Madison. I mean if you don’t want to wake up early for that, or if you’re not in the area, I’ll make sure to post a link to the video!

Thanks for checking out our string art tutorial!

xoxo