Earlier this year I made a string art quote for our entryway, and I thought it would be a fun fit for the nursery!
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Although I LOVE the finished project I curse the day I got the idea for it. learn from my mistakes...
Supplies:
OSB board-9.00 for a huge 4x8ft piece. I had them cut it down to 4x3.5 feet for this project.
finishing nails- I used about 1.5 lbs of these nails-5.00
paint and primer-both on hand-free
crochet yarn- around 2.00 with coupon
"Wow this is super cheap and its going to be super easy! I cant wait to knock it out in a couple hours." I was So naïve
What caused me to want to light this project on fire?
I loved the texture the OSF board gave, and I especially loved the price tag, but I had a TON of problems with the nails popping up and out of the surface of the wood as I nailed in all the letters. This caused me a ton of frustration because I would hammer in a whole letter, it seemed stable and then five minutes they would be wiggly again! I never had this problem when I used a solid piece of wood.
1. Prime and paint your wood. I used 2 coats of both paint and primer, there was some print on both sides of the OSF so I wanted to make sure it was covered up.
2.Find a font you like. I use dafonts.com for a lot of my projects. you will want to pick a bold blocky text so when you string it up, its obvious what your words are saying. I just guessed at the size of letter I wanted for the project. use trial and error when printing out size and placement. For your letters
3. After you position your letters you just take your nails and evenly space and then nail around each letter (while the paper is still attached to the board)
You will probably want to cry at this point because you have been sitting on the floor for 4 hours nailing in stupid nails, and you are 27 weeks pregnant, and you smashed your thumb twice, and you are bleeding, and you try to stand up but your bones feel like you have aged 75 years. oh wait...that's just me?
4. After you have finished nailing in 1 zillion nails you just pull the paper off. (usually the nails will stay in the board no problem but with the OSF board I had nails popping out all over the place so I basically RE-NAILED half of the words in again at this point. but I was too far to turn back at this point so I chugged along)
This is the thread I used for the letters. you could use embroidery floss or whatever other type you want to use. I like this stuff because its cheap and I used less then half the roll for this project. I would recommend checking out different craft stores for color options. Hobby Lobby had the best selection from what I found.
5. When starting the string portion I tied a knot around one nail, and then you "outline" each letter, I weaved around each nail and went around the letters twice. then you just go crazy going from nail to nail until you get the fill that you want with each letter. once I got it to where I wanted I simply tied another knot around a different nail.
when you are done lay on the floor and let the tears of joy flow! and then Vow next time to just cut out the letters out of vinyl and call it good:)
Just kidding. I think the personality of this art is worth the time. It brings a lot to the nursery without seeming too busy.
Hanging Instructions.
Nate and I were scratching our heads at how to we would hang this on the wall. its a 4ftx3.5 foot piece of wood so its fairly heavy. we ended up using D hooks on the back of the wood and then used these things called 'gorilla hooks' in the drywall! the gorilla hooks are awesome and the art seems really steady on the wall.
