This piece is a lot of fun, super easy, and of course cheap!!!! It’s very Rustic looking, And definitely doesn’t look like I only spent 3$ on it!!! We love pallet wood, it has so much character and you can find them anywhere. We dumpster dove for this little gem!!! yep that’s it I said it, We dumpster dive for wood, granted it is a solely wooden filled dumpster from a furniture place. Dont get me wrong, I would Dive the heck outta a real dumpster for a beat up wooden pallet!!!
The cool part is it’s a very versatile project, since you just weave the embroidery string around the nails, you can choose to do different patterns, like all in the same direction or all directing to one point on the project, different colors, and of course the words or shapes of your choosing. I of course chose the word Love and a Heart Shape I will do an & sign as well cause I have this weird thing with odd numbers, when it comes to decor and art projects like this I feel it looks more esthetically pleasing with 3 hanging on the wall rather than 2, 5 rather than 4 so on and so forth.
These make great gifts also, We made a family one for my mother in-law. I feel like you can fit this into mostly any type of styled home, because you can customize the color of your scrap wood,nails,and string. It would be great for just a last name monogram , or pictures of animals & bright colors for kids rooms. ok you get the point haha I truly could go on and on and on. But the show must go on…… Heres what I did and how I did it.
Hope you like….
Materials
- Piece of cut wood – Of your size and choosing, obviously the bigger the wood the easier the piece will be, make sure your image isn’t to small or it will just be a little more difficult. (my gorgeous man cut a piece of pallet for me, we are obsessed with pallets they have a lot of character with nail holes n divots n such)
- Nails– I just bought the simple 89 Cent silver flat-headed nails, be sure to measure your wood, you want your nails to stand out about a half-inch from the wood itself so you can have enough usable space to weave your thread
- Embroidery Thread– This will bring it to life and match the design of your home or room. I used two colors in different shades of green. I believe they were about 33 cents. I used two little bundles for the word love and one for my heart, but it all depends on the type of piece you’re doing
- Hammer!! kinda important, or just use a big rock……. 😉
- Stain,Paint and or varnish– We used just a stain we had in the shed, I Love the dark colors tho. we also did a small coat of varnish to give it a nice little shine
- Paper & Pencil or Template – To draw image or text of your choosing, or you can of course explore the wild world of the internet and print an image or text of your liking.
- Picture frame backing– You can just pic these up at the store or do what I did…. LOL I just rigged the heck out of the backs with two thumb tacks n tided some wire around them. BAM!!!
- Tweezers– to rip off paper template backing once finished
Step one.
Pick out your wood, cut it to size. We just used an old beat up pallet we had salvaged from a dumpster…..
Put wood on piece of paper and trace so you know how big to draw or print image
Once you have it cut and traced you can apply stain, paint and or varnish, we used about two coats of a dark stain and one coat of varnish
Step 2.
While your wood is drying. Use template of outline you traced from wood to draw out your image to get it centered and the size you love
Step 3.
Ok watch your fingers!!!!! LOL, This next step you will do by putting your fitted image and I put a nail at both ends of the image to hold it down
now you simply follow the outline of image by hammering nails into it. the shaded part of my drawing I left open, I strictly just did the outer parts of the image because I will fill in the shaded parts with the embroidering string to fill it in!!!
Step 4.
OK this is where the magic really happens. Take your beautifully awesomely color of your choice embroidery thread and tie it to one of the nails, don’t worry if there is a string hanging out because we can cut it at the end. Then just start to weave in out and around the nails. I went in all sorts of crazy directions but you could do a pattern if you wanna get really crazy!!! and when you have your desired look, once again tie the end and we can cut any hanging string left and you can even take glue n glue any straggler underneath the bed of weaved string to keep in place.
Step 5.
Now take your tweezers n rip n pull the paper template backing off. you can also screw in a picture hanging backing to the back. I being as cheap and Do it Your Flippin Self kinda person that I am just Jerry/Gerry (lol who knows) rigged the heck outta the back by just taking two flat thumb tacks and some wire tied to them and Bam. You my dear have a way to hang that beast! I know I know, I just blew your mind!!
Post script– If you’re making this for someone, don’t Macgyver it lol go with the nice hanging backer lol u just can nail or screw it in….
Enjoy & Good Luck
Till Next Time
Maria
