DIY: State String Art!

This is something that I've been thinking about trying, but finally I made a plan and executed it. So I have wanted to make some type of memorabilia to show all the places we have lived since me and Jason were married way back on Nov. 2nd 2007. Since we're a military family we've traveled a bit in the last 6 years. We started out in Idaho, took 2 years in New York, 3 years in Okinawa Japan and now are currently hanging out in Texas!

So here we have string art. It's pretty easy, doesn't take expensive materials, and turns out fabulous!

What you need: Wood boards (I used some left over scrap wood but for a buck you can get a 5x7 thin board at Walmart, small short nails, paint (whatever color your heart desires), and cross stitch thread, I bought mine at Walmart of 30 cents. Like I said this is a very inexpensive project. If you're cutting your own wood obviously you'll be needing a few more things like a measuring tape, saw, and sandpaper.

Step 1: Use a piece of sand paper and sand your wood until there are no rough edges.

 Step 2: Pick your paint and go to town. I decided on a dark red and navy blue (it sooo does not look navy it this picture) These will be going into our patriotic room! The paint I used was left over from my pallet flag project so everything will match!

Make sure the paint is dry before you start putting your nails in! 

Step 3: Print out your state shape.  Cut these out and make sure they fit on your boards. Now you can do one of two things. You can either trace your cut out state and then nail along the traced line or you can hammer the nails into the paper. I choose the do the paper version because I didn't want trace lines on my boards, though if you used a pencil you probably wouldn't see them.

When I printed out my states I also printed small hearts. I traced the heart onto the paper and then nailed around the traced line. 

Step 4: hammer, hammer, hammer. This step takes the most patience. If you choose to keep your paper on the board just rip it off once you're finished with the nailing part. Once you've removed your paper it should look like the photo below.

Ohhhh so Pretty :)

  Step 5: Add your string. I had 44 nails along the outside and 10 on the inside so each heart nail is connected to 4ish outside nails. Tie your unwound string onto any starting point and start wrapping your nails. I wrapped each about 5 times before moving onto the next nail. Go all the way around and Presto, you have mad a fun memento to remember your home state or any place you've ever been to.

All done and ready to hang on the wall! :)