State of the Art

Has anyone NOT seen these nail and string art masterpieces on Etsy yet?  I've always thought they were amazing, and obviously wanted to try making my own at some point.  However, I always suspected that this would be one of those situations where my DIY did not quite live up to my inspiration…  but that's okay.  I still think it turned out pretty cool!  Apologies that I do not have pictures for each step - if you have any questions, please contact me, or leave a comment below!  This would also be a super cute gift idea.

MATERIALS:

• Nails (the shortest with the smallest head that you can find - you'll see why soon.)
• Embroidery Thread (you can really use any string, but embroidery thread is so cheap and comes in so many different colors it is PERFECT for this!)
• Picture of your desired state, blown up to size
• Hammer
• Rectangular (or desired shape) piece of wood - you can find these in all shapes at any craft store
• Paint or wood stain (as desired).

INSTRUCTIONS:

Paint your wood piece with your desired color or stain - I used a cherry colored wood stain for mine, as I liked the natural wood look.  Let it dry completely.  Cut out the picture of your desired state, and tape it down to your painted wood piece. 

Take your nails, and hammer them into the wood (not all the way in - leave about 1/4 an inch), all the way around the picture of your state.  Yes, you should hammer the nails around the paper - don't worry, you'll be removing this soon!  Once you have the outline of your state completed, also hammer your nails into the shape of a heart over your city.  You can free-hand this, or go ahead and draw a heart cut-out in your paper, and use this as your guide.  

Now comes the fun party!  Take the embroidery string, and wind it around the nails - for every one time I looped around one of the outside nails, I would loop about 10 or more times around one of the inside heart nails.  You can play this by ear as you go along.  (NOTE - for sections of your map that are separated from the inside heart nails, I just wrapped the string around in the same direction TOWARDS the inside heart nails.)

You may have to play around with how you wrap your string, but you will quickly learn the best way to do it and how to make it work for you.

Complete!!  My big regret here is the nails I used - I got them from Home Depot, and they are some UGLY nails…. definitely not art quality.  You may want to get yours from Michaels or something.  Mine looked like they can't stand the fact that they are part of an art project, and would give anything to be hammered into a deck or a 2x4 instead.

Note that this is what the back side of my project looks like.  This is why you should get the shortest nails with the smallest head that you can find!

Inspiration:  String Theory Co. Etsy Shop

DIY Guest Room Art

So I tried the quote art thing a couple of weeks ago, and it was an official "DIY Defeat" situation.  HOWEVER, I learned a thing or two, and this weekend I was back for more.  Instead of using cheap stickers for lettering, I only used vinyl lettering (which you can find online or at the craft store).  I also got blank canvases and painted them myself with spray paint - first with metallic gold (for the lettering), and then a deep blue to match our guest room.  These turned out much better than before, and I love how welcoming they make our guest room look!  

Materials:

Blank Canvas(es)

Spray Paint 

Vinyl Lettering 

THAT'S IT!

Instructions:

Spray paint your canvas whatever color you'd like your lettering to be.  You can also follow what I tried the first time and just skip this step, using a pre-painted canvas from the thrift store or something.  Once you have a painted canvas, use your vinyl lettering to spell our whatever words or phrases you'd like.  Make sure you use a ruler for your lettering to be straight!  Also, pay attention to the spacing between your letters.  If it's too messy, it will look a little too "DIY", if you know what I'm sayin'.  Once you have your vinyl lettering on, spray paint again in a different color.  Wait to dry, and then peel off the vinyl lettering.  That's it!  You're done!

I really like how both of my canvases match, and am satisfied with how these turned out.  Also, using spray paint, the paint dries within 30 minutes!  Such a quick and easy project to brighten up a room…!  :)

Paint Chip Art

I actually made this about 6 months ago, right before we moved into our house.  I had seen a photo of someone using paint chips to create a giant wall-size version of a Marilyn Monroe picture (inspiration link below), and thought "what an awesome idea!  I have to try it!".  Naturally, I chose to do one of an artichoke.  So here are the steps!  Be warned - this is tedious and time consuming…but the result really is fabulous!  

Materials:

Paint chips.  Lots of paint chips.  (From Lowes - I will explain why.)

A square paper punch

Glue

A canvas  

This website:  http://www.heavymural.com

This program:  Olympic Paints Desktop App, http://www.olympic.com/color/desktop_apps

Instructions:

Choose an image you'd like for your mural - be creative!  When you have an image picked, www.heavymural.com will take any image and pixelate it for you.  (Yes, amazing that it exists!)  I had to try several different images before I was satisfied with how the pixelation turned out, so don't be afraid to play around!  Pay close attention to the "pixels per row" box, as this will determine just how large your mural will be (and how big a canvas you need), depending on how big your square punch is.  I used a 1/2 inch-sized square punch for my artichoke mural.  

Once you have your pixelated image, print it out on your color printer, and draw gridlines through it, separating each pixel.  You will then label letters across the top for each column, and numbers along the side for each row (like a spreadsheet!  This can probably be done on the computer somehow too, but you get the idea).  Now comes the tedious part.  Start a spreadsheet, and make a list of each pixel involved in your mural (Now that you have gridded them out, you can label them A1, A2, A3, etc).  Open the Olympic Paints Desktop App on your computer, and open a digital copy of your pixelated image from HeavyMural.com.  Using the desktop app, you will be able to select each individual pixel from your image, and color match it to the coordinating Olympic Paint color.  BRILLIANT!!  Make a note of each paint color match for each pixel on your spreadsheet, so each pixel has a coordinating color.  (Make a note of the color name and the color code/number, as this will make your life easier when you have to find all of these paint chips at Lowes)  Yes, this will probably take you awhile.  But it is worth it!  Stay with it!

When you are FINALLY finished, you can use pivot tables (if you are excel savvy) or old fashioned elbow grease to count up how many pixel squares of each paint color you will need for your mural.  Now hit up Lowes!  I admit it, I did have to go to 2 different local Lowes stores to get all of the green paint chips I needed for my artichoke.  BUT, remember that they will be put to good use!  Next, you start hole punching with your square hole punch.  (I used envelopes to keep all of my colors grouped together as I went.)  When you have all of your squares/"pixels" ready, you can start gluing them to your canvas!  To be precise, I went through and gridded my canvas with pencil beforehand (you can see this a little in my images), which I do recommend doing.  However, I did have trouble erasing all of the pencil afterwards….so USE CAUTION!  (Let me know if you have a trick to erase pencil from canvas!)

Using your list of pixels and their matching colors, you can now go through and glue the paint chip squares to their coordinating location on your canvas.  This is the best part - you will slowly be able to see your image take shape!  When finished, you can coat the canvas with a sealer (I used acrylic spray). Mod podge may also work!  And VOILA!  Your very own piece of paint chip art!  (And for super cheap!!)

Inspiration:

Apartment Therapy Reader Project:  

http://www.apartmenttherapy.com/pixelated-artwork-made-from-pa-96646