This project was inspired by an art instillation I saw on the web and I thought it was so beautiful I just had to have one! Obviously I do not have room for such an instillation, so I decided to make a mini one that would look great as a desktop or house decoration. AND, it is completely customizable!

Materials

- wood glue

- 3 pieces of equal size wood

- sander (if wood is rough)

- colorful string

- white spray paint

- hammer

- clamps (or something to hold the wood together when it's drying)

- small wide head nails

Step 1: Prep Your Wood.

I bought a long piece of wood from Home Depot and I asked them to cut it into equal sizes for me. (This made my job a whole lot easier as I didn't have the tools to cut through wood this wide, but it did leave the pieces sharp and cracked at the end.)

Next, I used a sanding belt to eliminate the rough edges, followed by a finer sand paper to make it even smoother. If you don't have a sanding belt available to you, it's fine to just use regular sand paper.

Step 2: Hammer in the Nails.

First, plan out how many strings you want on each side and divide the board evenly keeping that number in mind. I have 9 colors and I wanted each to have 2 strands, so I divided mine up into 18 equally spaced parts.

Smaller nails are better because they don't draw attention away from the strings in the end result. Also, make sure you have nails with a wide head (you are tying strings around them and they can't slide off.)

On the base board I put nails on both sides, 2 inches away from each vertical board. On the vertical boards, I put the nails 1 inch from the top. But, you can play around with where and how you want your strings to cross to see what you like best.

After you've made marks as to where the nails will go, take your hammer and nail each one in until around a quarter inch of the nail is sticking out.

The more even and straight your nails are, the better your project will look in the end.

Step 3: Glue and Clamp

Using strong wood glue, glue the three pieces together. Have the vertical pieces glue to the sides of the horizontal piece, not on top of it.

Clamp the pieces together and let that sit for 12-24 hours.

Step 4: Paint

Spry paint the three pieces. You may need a few coats.

Let it dry.

Of course you don't have to spray paint it, it was just the easiest and quickest option for me.

Step 5: String It!

So this is the hardest part...

String the first nail on the base on the left side with the first color. Tie a not at the base of the nail, and lead the string to the farthest nail on the top of the opposite side. Make the string as tight as you can so the strings don't droop.

Once you have the the first string, do the same to the right.

ORDER IS IMPORTANT. Make sure you do the left and then the right side as you go, or else you won't get the weaving affect at the end.

To make sure the strings don't break, I put a small glob of super glue at the base of the nail where the knot is.

Once the glue dries, cut off the excess string off as close to the knot as possible, but without cutting the knot.

And once you've done that, viola! You've got a beautiful piece of string art!