LOVEly Wall Art - Terra from Mama Says Sew

Mama Says Sew is a blog you should definitely be following.  If you aren't already, that is.  She's got great ideas and lovely inspiration for projects of all types.  Her gift idea today is right up my alley and something I am very excited to try out!

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Hi everyone! I'm Terra and I blog over at mama says sew. I'm excited to be here today for the Gift It! series. 

Today I'm going to show you how to make this map showing a little local love with string and nails.

This would be a great wedding or baby shower gift. You could do the location where the couple got married with their names and the date, or the location a baby was born with the name and birth stats. 

There are a whole bunch of these maps floating around. You can buy them on etsy, but I thought, why not make my own? So here we go.

You'll need:

A board 

Paint

Painter's Tape

Nails {and a hammer}

Crochet Thread

Start by painting the board your base color. I wanted stripes, so I just added some strips of painter's tape.

 Then paint over it in a contrasting color. I had a little help with this one.

Pull off the tape and wait for it to dry. You can distress it if you'd like.

Print out a stencil. Spray Paint Stencils has lots of them. And they're free. I copied mine into a Word document and enlarged it.

Trace around it onto the wood. You can use a pen like I did below. If you're using a soft wood like pine, you could also use a nail to just dent the wood instead of leaving ink. That way you don't have to worry about the ink showing.

Hammer in the nails all the way around. The closer the nails are together, the more you'll be able to fill in the map with string. I used 1-inch panel board nails.

Nail in a heart for the location.

Tie your string to one of the nails. Note that I trimmed the tail. Bad idea. It's much easier to tie a knot at the end if you have a tail to tie it to.

Start wrapping your string around the outline nails and then the heart nails and back to the outline nails in order. Obviously you have a lot more outline nails than you do heart nails, so the heart nails will have lots of wrapping around them.

Unless you're doing a state like Wyoming or Colorado, you'll probably have an area like this where it would be really awkward to go from the outline to the heart. I just went back and forth across the outline nails to fill in these sections {in addition to New England, Florida and Michigan look like this too}.

Now add names and/or dates. Ta da! A unique and meaningful gift.

I know, right??  Brilliant!  A perfect blend of some trendy ideas, and some of the cutest string art I've seen.  I think newlyweds would LOVE this.  Thanks, Terra!  Can't wait to put this idea to use! 

*Be sure to check the right sidebar for all the fun parties I link to!