make + create.

i'm feeling very much like i can do anything today.... 

because i did this very cool thing in my guest room turned office/craft room yesterday.

i nailed 200 nails in my wall and made art!

big... BIG.. art.

we're talking arial font, size 800

 cooooooool, huh?

now... i'm a crafty person... i do projects around the house without so much as a shine of my nails on my lapel... but i was practically doing back flips through every turn of this project BECAUSE IT IS SO RAD.

maybe it's the exactness of the yarn, who knows - but my inner queen of precision dances every time i look at it.

here's how it worked:

1.  i found this on pinterest - or was it on design mom first?  i don't know...

2. i brainstormed the message i might want to display in the room {i don't like calling it a craft room.  can i call it the creative room instead?}.  make + create was the first thing that came to mind, but i printed the entire alphabet just in case. just as the tutorial states, choose a really simple font.  no serifs. i went super safe with arial. to make the formatting as easy as possible, i turned to my handy-dandy powerpoint - the place where i do all of my design work.  it's like adobe-for-dummies and i swear i can do anything in that program.  set up the page to fit an 8.5" x 11" sheet, portrait.  insert a text box and center it on the page. beginning with the A, i formatted it appropriately.  in my case, arial size 800.  duplicate slide 25 more times and replace the letter on the page with the rest of the alphabet... or whatever message you'll be displaying.

 

3.  using a level and painter's tape, create a straight line. trim the white space from each letter, leaving about 1/2" around the page. position your letters and attach with painters tape. avoid taping over the letter - the E was a little tricky... not much white space on any edge! use the bottom of the letters as a guide against the painters tape. if you look carefully, my T is off a smidge. kills me.  

4.  check, check, triple check.

5.  pound nails into your wall like a mad woman.  i used 2" 6d {big} nails. i went through a box and a half of nails. you'll use more than you think. i think there are 26 nails in the M alone.  geesh.  i began in the upper left corner of each letter, hitting the angles/corners first, then filling in the space between as i saw fit. straight lines don't neeeeed the extra nails, it just looks more fitting i think. in order to achieve a rounded look along the curves of some of the letters, be more generous with your nails. the inside C, for example, was in nail heaven.

{if you care to, measure and mark each nail with a line to indicate when to stop pounding so they're all even. i didn't do that.... blame it on my good eye.}

6. tie a knot around a nail - on an corner, maybe - and start winding your yarn, pulling it taut and as close to the wall as possible. with each loop around the track {i stopped counting, but i think i went around 6 or 7 times}, scootch your yard that much closer to the nail head. it's okay if it crosses your previous layer of yarn. perfection, schmerfection. another knot will tie it off.  trim the extra strand of yarn at your knots.

7.  when you're all done - or when you're antsy enough to want to peek at your final product, carefully remove the paper behind the yarn. i tore at it, ripping around the nail holes.  you may have to adjust the yarn back into place.  after a few rounds of this, i was comfortable enough to remove the paper before i wound the yarn around my nails.  fair warning, though, with out the print out of the letter behind it, it really does look like a jumble of nail heads. be sure/confident you're winding the yarn around the right place. 

8.  stand back and do a cartwheel... you're equal parts genius, crafty, and lumberjack.

go ahead.  copy me. pin this. and then tell me how talented i am. with enough compliments and fanfare, i'll let you in for an afternoon of shared crafting in my new posh {almost} space - a prized opportunity indeed!