As most other collegiettes, I too am a self-proclaimed Pinterest addict. Whenever I need a new recipe, some outfit inspiration, or any sort of at-home solution (how to clean a dishwasher, how to make your pimple appear smaller in the shortest time possible, etc.), Pinterest is my go to. My recent obsession on Pinterest has been their DIY & Crafts category, which has every fun, weekend-in craft you could think of. Collegiettes who are Pinterest fiends like me know that a lot of these crafts look really difficult and time consuming, but I am here to tell you they are not! Enter: Pinterest Demystified. The first one we’re going to tackle? DIY String Art.
I had seen this one going around the Pinterestsphere for a while and finally decided to give it a try. I wanted to make mine a little different, though, so instead of using a map I decided to use the letters I O W A, with a ? for the O, of course! A little school spirit never hurt anyone’s living room, right?! So, some things you will need include:
• A piece of wood: the size depends on what you want to spell/draw out in string. If it’s small enough, stores will usually just give it to you for free as scrap wood!
• Paint
• Embroidery floss: I would recommend using a color that will really stand out against the color you paint the wood. Also, if you can find “waxed” embroidery floss, this might make your life a little easier. I couldn’t find any so I used normal embroidery floss, which turned out fine!
• Nails: Make sure they’re not longer than the thickness of your piece of wood.
• Hammer
• Printouts: Print out whatever you want to put on your board, whether it is letters, a map, etc. For letters, I would recommend using a simple font (I used Arial) and make sure they are printed large enough to fill up the board (I printed mine 1 letter per page, about size 400-500).
Here we go! To get started you want to paint your wood and let it dry completely. Next, cut out your printout as close to the lines as you can. Tape the printout on the board. Next comes the fun part. Trace the printout in nails by hammering them into the wood all the way around the printout. Do your hammering outside!
Make sure you do them pretty close together, but not so close that the tops of the nails touch the ones next to them. Once you have hammered in nails all the way around, lift the printout off the wood. Now it’s stringing time! Tie the end of your embroidery floss on one of the nails and begin webbing it between nails.
There is really no specific way to do this, just wrap it around a nail and then go to another nail. My best advice when stringing the nails is to web it between far away nails. So instead of webbing it with the nail right next to the one you just wrapped, take it across to the other side. This ends up looking much better and webby-er. If you are doing different letters, once you feel that the letter is complete, just tie the end off on another nail and start from the top on the next letter. Once you have strung all the nails, you are done! Take a step back and admire your Pinterest worthy string art!