December 2013 – Sarah N. Higgins

Abby's map of Georgia, pinned at Athens.

This year’s Christmas craft: DIY string art for my family friends. One of my favorite crafts to date!

It wasn’t even Halloween yet, and I’d bought my Christmas tree. All it needed was presents to sit beneath it. Luckily, I knew exactly what I’d wanted to do. I’m never quite satisfied when a craft doesn’t go the way I plan. So when I tried DIY string art for the first time this summer and the results weren’t remotely close to what I envisioned, I knew string art was going to eventually make a reappearance.

Thankfully, this Christmas, I had new friends from all over the country to practice on.

I wanted crafts that we could all use to decorate our new (and first) apartments and ones that reflected our personalities and alma maters. After I made DIY instagram coasters for half the group, I decided to try DIY string art for the others, using school colors to make them as personal as possible.

I was so excited by how well they turned out, I decided to grab more paint, more nails, and more string and makes ones for myself of all the places I’ve lived: Pennsylvania, Texas, England, Colorado, and now Georgia. The colors fit in perfectly with my cherry-and-white apartment and they’re one of my favorite things in my house…except for maybe my cherry-and-white Christmas tree, of course!

I’m so excited to give them to my friends and family…I’m not sure I’m going to be able to wait until our Christmas party! String art is definitely one of my favorite crafts I’ve made to date.

Follow my photo tutorial below for step-by-step instructions.

Merry Christmas!

: I started out with 10x10x1″ boards from Home Depot. I bought a piece that was about 10 feet long and they cut it for me in the store.

: This time, instead of using roofing nails, I chose smaller nails. They were much easier and allowed me to make more intricate designs.

: I picked string that would look well against boards or matched my friends’ alma maters’ colors.

: I printed off maps of the states I planned to make. Making the maps 8″ at the widest spot made a perfectly-sized border on the edge of the wood.

: The Krylon paint I chose for the boards was called “cherry” (appropriately enough!) and was made for painting wood or metal.

: I painted the boards on my back deck, using two to three coats each, giving them a solid day to dry in between.

: I attached the map to the board with painter’s tape so it wouldn’t move while I was nailing around the border. Abby’s map of Georgia pictured here.

: After placing nails around the border, I placed a nail in the city that meant the most to the person. Justin is from Tucson, so I placed the nail there in his map of Arizona, pictured here. The more centrally-located the focal nail is, the more even the design.

: At my dad’s suggestion, I used the picture framing kits with teeth on the back of each board, which gave me more flexibility than picture-hanging wire.