Follow Your Arrow

Howdy Kiwi Lane peeps! Today I have a fun little decor project I am so excited to share with you!

I’m sure you’ve all seen some examples of nail string art lately. And if not lately, sometime a few decades ago, right? Did you know that you can use your templates to make the shapes in string art? Well, you can! So I did!! Read on to find out how.

First, I created a simple stained board (about 11” tall and 17” wide) with an inspirational phrase on it. I chose “Follow Your Arrow” for a few reasons. First, I had seen the phrase around a lot and really liked it. Second, I knew that there were a few templates that I could use that were arrows, or similar, and arrows have straight lines. I thought straight lines would be easier to work with for my first rodeo in the string art arena.

Next, I created my string art template by tracing Kiwi Lane templates onto paper that was pieced together to fit my board. I played with a few shapes, but ended up liking the way the larger chevron (7) from the Elements Accessory set looked.

When I had my paper where I wanted it, I used some washi tape to hold it in place. Then I started taking out some aggression… umm… I mean hammering in some nails. I started with the points, then filled in the rest of the lines. I attempted to make them as evenly spaced as I could, along with keeping each nail at approximately the same height.

After nearly a hundred nails, I was done with my hammering. 

Now, I just had to remove the paper. There’s no real tip or trick to this (that I’m aware of), you just rip around the nails until all the paper is gone. If you have any little bits around the nails, you can use tweezers to grab them. 

Next step- choosing the color combo and string type. You can use crochet string or thin yarn or thick thread or whatever you feel like using. I ended up using embroidery floss because that was the only thing I could find in my local craft store that had three of the colors that would give me the ombre effect I wanted. 

I started wrapping my string around the nails, starting by making an outline of the shape. 

Then I played with patterns to fill in the shape.

I ended up going with the more random look and filled in the shape until it looked good to me. 

I continued wrapping all my chevrons, going from dark on the outside to light on the inside and mirroring the colors.

I finished my board with a couple eye screws and some jute twine. Here’s my finished project: 

I love how it turned out!

I have to admit- this took me a lot longer than I thought it would. I think doing a shape, or series of shapes, that requires less nails would take less time. But part of my issue was that I would accidentally let go of the string and it would unwind. I redid quite a bit, but this might just be because it was my first string art project. Maybe I’ll get better with more experience. And I’ll definitely be making another string art project using my Kiwi Lane templates!

Thanks for stopping by today! I would love to see what you create using your templates- don’t forget to share it either here on the blog, or via Facebook, Instagram or Twitter.

-Gail Owens