String Art Tutorial

ANNOUNCEMENT 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”.
STRINGARTTUTORIAL 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.

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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

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Glitter State Artwork

So here is another one of my Christmas presents I made. I have had my eye on this craft for a while. I actually love state artwork, there are so many fun ones I want to try but how many pictures of states can a girl have in her house, I believe the answer is too many. What better way to have fun making them and not look like a hoarder- than making them as gifts! 🙂 This one took a little bit more time simply for the fact that I a) needed daylight (to trace the state outline on my paper) since I don’t have a lightbox I needed daylight and as sad as it is, that is hard to come by in the winter during the hours I’m at home. and b) I wanted the glue and glitter to completely dry and set before framing.

Here is what you’ll need:

a print out of your state of choice. I obviously chose the best state in existance, Wisconin.
Thicker paper, like cardstock, poster board, this really depends on how big of a state or picture you are making
Scissors
Plain ole regular modge podge (mine in honestly still from when I was like 17 years old. still works, but I’m running low and need more soon!
Glitter. I got mine in the card making section at Micheals(you can see the pic below for deets) but really any craft glitter will work.
Paint brush
Containter to coat your cut out in to avoid a glitter catastrophe 🙂
Double stick tape
Frame and if you want, colored paper to line your frame.

Optional:

You can use a sticker of a heart or if you don’t have on I just painted a heart in red/pink paint on a peice of paper and cut it out and stuck in on.

Here is a picture of some of my supplies:

Clockwise: My modge podge and glitter I used- an illustration that you really want to not be shy with the modge podge in order to get a good coating of glitter to stay on the paper, my cutout in a glass container covered in glitter, then once it had dried a little and the exess glitter shaken off.

Here is what I did:

1) Print out an outline of your state. I mean I guess you can freehand it but I would suggest printing 😉

2) I taped my thicker cardstock over the outline and held up to my patio door (this is where that daylight is needed) and just traced the shape. then untape the sheets.

3) Use scissors and carefully cut out your state from your thicker cardstock.

4) place the outline in your container and use a paintbrush or spongebrush thingy, to coat your paper in modge podge. See my picture above about how you should really put a good coat on. Otherwise the glitter won’t stick nicely and it will be alittle thin, but be careful to not overcoat otherwise it will probably never dry. No harm in doing a little test run on a peice of scrap paper like I did above too.

5) When modge podge is still wet, coat generously with glitter, making sure to get a nice even coat and no “bald” spots.

6) Let the glitter and modge podge set for a while, probably like an hour and then pick up carefully(as it’s not all the way dry yet) and shake excess glitter from the cutout. Then I placed the glitter state on a piece of scrap paper and allowed to dry completely. I waited 4 days because I went out of town but I’m sure it doesn’t really take that long, but I’d for sure wait a full day.

7) You can pour your excess glitter back into it’s container and save for another glitter craft 🙂

8) This isn’t a necessary step but once my state was dry I took it outside and sprayed it with a high gloss arcylic sealer. Basically just because I wanted to set the glitter a little more. I didn’t want to have specs of glitter coming “free” and getting all over the glass of the frame because that would be a pain in the ass to deal with. I had purchased it for a different craft and thought, “hey why not try it”. Like I said, it’s not necessary but if you have anything similar lying around it worked great. ( Here is a link to the product that I used)

9) Once dry, if you choose you can place a heart over a particular locatiaon of the state that holds any significance to you. Then I put a couple peices of double stick tape on the back and taped it to a peice of black paper and placed in the frame.

TA DA!

Ignore the reflection in the glass of the frame. It was nearly impossible to not get my hands or face ! 🙂

I was so pleased with this craft! I made it for my best friend who is originally from Wisconsin but moved to Minnesota. I told her this was so she could always see “home” 🙂 I miss you B!That’s pretty much it. I mean this had so many endless possibilities not just in states but any shape you could think of. I think an outline of a stag head and antlers or something like that would be really cool too. Experiment and let me know what awesome things you all create 🙂

Thanks for reading!

xoxo