DIY: String Wall Art

As a renter, dorm room dweller, person who moves frequently, and/or lazy college grad still living at home, it's never a good idea to go nailing a million holes in your walls. As a high schooler, I had at least 40 tacks and nails in my walls at all times plus at least as many glow in the dark stars on my ceiling - let's just say my dad wasn't terribly happy about filling all those holes.

So what's a girl to do when she sees this kind of wall art (and this one and this one) that requires roughly a million nails, but really really really wants to recreate it in her room? ...this:

Put it on an old corkboard!

What you need:
Old corkboard, painted or "raw"
String and/or yarn
Lots of nails
A hammer
A printout of the word(s) (or you can freehand them)

I found these awesome white nails!

What you do:
1) Nail around the edges of your letters. I put a nail every inch or so, but this will depend on how large your letters are.

Be careful not to hammer the nails through to the other side of the board, as this can damage what you're nailing on as well as the wall when you hang your art! I definitely recommend doing this step outside.

My cat was kind enough to supervise my progress.

He was a real helper...

2) Run away from the mosquitoes and go back inside. Wrap yarn around the border of the letters a few times to give it definition, then randomly wrap around the inside. Begin and end each letter by tying the yarn to one of the nails.

You can push your yarn to be flat against the board, but I really liked the more 3d effect. Here you can kind of see how I wrapped the edge of each letter three times before zigzagging around the middle.

3) Cut off the dangling ends of yarn, and you're done!! I haven't figured out where to hang mine yet so for now it lives in front of my dresser.