What Size Does the Board to Do a Peacock String Art

String art is a slap-up fashion to create decorative wall hangings. With only nails and cord, you tin can transform a few shapes or letters into fine art in whatever colors and sizes yous wish!

Making cord art can also be a fun family project. Above is the string art project that nosotros made with our daughter for her room. She is very happy with information technology considering she was able to pick every element, from its blueprint to its color scheme. But more chiefly, she is proud of the work that she put into making her DREAM come true, and then to speak! (Past the way, the flying pig in the photograph to a higher place is a courageous squealer that dared to dream of flight and managed to brand the impossible possible by using its wits to create wings. Its patterns and instructions on how to brand information technology are bachelor from my online shop, muumade.etsy.com)

Here is a list of what you volition need to make your own string fine art:

A board
Nails
A hammer
Crochet string (Nosotros used Size three cotton string)
Super glue

But before you lot start gathering the above-mentioned materials, hither are a few "practise'southward" and "don'ts" based on our feel so that you tin can make a shortcut to success without having to commit the aforementioned mistakes that nosotros made!

Board

To brand the DREAM string fine art shown in the first photo, we used a i.5 cm (v/8″) thick particle board with a white melamine coating. It is 55 cm (21 one/2″) wide and 45 cm (17 ane/ii″) long.

Do: Use wood – solid, plywood or particle lath, because it offers a difficult surface on which to secure the nails in place. Choose a board that is thick enough to allow near ane.25 cm (1/2″) of the nails to exist hammered into it without their coming out on the other side. I recommend a thickness of effectually 2 cm (3/4″).

Don't: Avoid panels with a melamine coating! As shown in the photo in a higher place, this type of finish cracks very easily when a nail is hammered in and leaves gagged edges effectually the pigsty. If you desire the surface to exist in a color other than that of natural woods, I suggest that yous pigment the board.

Type of Fonts or Images

We used the Stencil font for the messages DREAM. While the resulting letters expect pretty, this font made our project more than complicated than we had expected. We needed to put the nails rather close together in order for the sparse pointy tips and rounded ends of these letters to prove. We placed them v mm (3/sixteen″) autonomously, and that meant we used approximately 800 nails! Hammering in nails in a directly line is a challenge, but doing and so that close together fabricated the task painstakingly tedious.

Exercise: I advise that you proceed your paradigm or discussion as unproblematic every bit possible. If you are using letters, simpler fonts with an fifty-fifty thickness and fewer protruding points, such as Arial, would exist good. As well, to make it easier to hammer the nails, you may want to space out the messages more than than we did (nosotros but had v mm (3/16″) between the A and the M, for instance).

Don't: I think that the above description of our experience pretty much sums it up; avoid fancy fonts or complicated images with detailed and protruding parts!

Nails

We used 25 mm (1″) long contumely nails with a wide head.

Do: I liked the nails that we used, because their wide caput made it easy for the cord to be held onto each nail. The length of the nail was also adept.

Don't: I definitely practice not recommend placing nails equally close together equally we did, i.e. five mm (3/16″) apart. I'd say an interval of around 1.v cm (1/2″) betwixt the nails would be a lot more practical. Trying to hammer them in so close together, we sacrificed a adept number of the nails.

Now that you know 'what to do' and 'what not to do', you are ready to make your own string art!

How to make cord art

	i. Prepare a word or image that y'all wish to utilise for your string art, in a size advisable for the board that y'all have selected. (Here is a link with cute examples of string art to get your imagination going.)
	2. Make marks to position nails along the outlines of your epitome or word at equal intervals. I recommend one.five cm (1/2″) intervals.
	3. Place that newspaper template on pinnacle of the board, and when you lot are happy with its placement, temporarily tape it onto the board. (Notation: Make sure that the tape that y'all are using does not peel off the paint or coating of the board when removed.)
	4. Hammer the nails into the board along the outlines of your discussion/paradigm. (Notation: This stride tin have a long time, depending on the complication of your blueprint and the distance you use between the nails.)
	v. Once y'all have finished hammering in the nails, remove the paper template.
	6. Brand a small loop at one end of the string and use a chip of Super gum on the knot. Then, hook the loop onto one of the nails.
	vii. At present start weaving the string dorsum and along around the nails, while keeping it taut. My daughter enjoyed this function of the project immensely. She did the stringing randomly, although she fabricated certain to catch every nail once in the process.
	8. When finished stringing a letter or a shape, make 2 overhand knots effectually the last boom. Then apply a scrap of Super glue on the knot. When the glue is dry, cut off the cord.