Hammering away at an art project ... literally

I love DIY projects. Whether it requires a glue gun, circular saw, or sewing machine, I am usually game to give it a try. I don't like to spend money on something that I can make myself especially if then I can make it exactly how I want it. This is my first time sharing a DIY project with you guys, so feel free to let me know what you think in the comments! But first.... as always... as little background info!

I am the middle child in a family with three girls. So I had the joy (and occasional misery) of growing up with two sisters. My mom used to say I was the icing in the middle of the Oreo cookie - but I think she just said this as a way to combat my Middle Child Syndrome - all you middle kids out there totally know what I am talking about.

Kat is my older sister and she lives a glamorous life in Toronto as an amazing hair stylist. Zoë is my little sister and she lives near me in Ottawa. You may remember Zoë from this couple session. I have said it before, but I will say it again... she is a true beauty!

Photo by Laura Kelly Photography

Anyways, Zoë recently moved to a new apartment and I wanted to make her something for her new place. I had done some nail & yarn art on the seating chart for our wedding and I was looking for a chance to try some more.

Photo by Laura Kelly Photography

The seating chart was not small (it was 4 feet x 2 feet - and I almost dropped it on my foot twice). She wanted something to hang over her bed, so I used the same building design and shrunk it down a little bit.

Instead of using a wood-colour stain like I did on the seating chart I decided instead to try out a new grey stain I found. Once it was built I took it to the garage and gave it a good coat of the Winwax stain in Classic Grey.

For the design I originally wanted to do the letters LOVE really big, but as I was making my stencil I thought that was a little too boring. So I decided to put the word LOVE inside a heart (not exactly a wild choice... but a little less boring I think). The plan was the wrap the yarn between the heart and the letters and leave the inside of the letters just the wood. I'm not sure if that explanation makes any sense.... when I tried to explain it the Mr he looked at me like I had just eaten a container of play-doh. Luckily for me, a picture is worth a thousand words.

I printed off the word love in the font and size that I wanted. I didn't want it centred in the heart, so it is off a bit to the right side of the board. Finding the right spacing for the nails was hard and because the letters were not huge there were some places where I had to space them a little differently. I really do love symmetry... but sometimes you just have to go with what works.


Side Note: this may not have been a good project to work on with a glass of wine. No one was injured, but wine was spilt... and that may actually have be worse.

I had to change the shape of the letters a little as I went along. I used smaller nails on the seating chart, so I had to adjust my spacing to make room for the large nail heads.

 

 

 

Once I finished the letters I pulled off the paper stencil and laid out my heart stencil. I had cut out the middle of the heart so that I could lay it over the LOVE nails.

Side note: I realize it looks like I drew the heart stencil drunk, but I promise it really was symmetrical - it was just the inside part that I cut sloppy. Notice that I am not saying I wasn't drunk... rather that it was symmetrical and my sobriety wouldn't have made a difference. *wink

I nailed around the outside of the heart stencil and then once i gained feeling back in my arm I took off the paper. Now it is ready for the yarn.

I must admit when I did the yarn part of the seating chart there was a lot of swearing. My little sister was actually at my house when I was working on it and witnessed a lot of profanity... she thought it was hilarious and I could hear her laughing upstairs while I hollered bad words in the basement.

Luckily this time around went much smoother. As smooth as wrapping yarn around a billion nails could go I guess.

Side note: I took the above and below pics in different rooms and with different lighting... hence the wood looks really different. In real life it is actually somewhere in the middle of the two colours. I just didn't want you to think that this project is some kind of a photoshop scam... although that would be pretty impressive.

 

 

I hope you enjoyed this like escape from the usual. Happy DIYing friends. 

xo B