It’s almost back to school, so we’ll be posting some of our fave DIY’s from Spins & Needles events in the next few weeks.
First up is our City Limits String Art Project, featured at our Geometrics party last March. We were inspired by Spirographs, pulsars and Bezier curves. For some of our party inspiration, check out this post.
String art has been somewhat a big thing this year. There’s lots of variations using American states, but as far we searched, none really for Canada. So for this project we decided to use the shape of the city where we live (Ottawa). But you can apply the same idea to other shapes, as long as they are quite solid and simple.
We’re thinking one of these days it would be really rad to do this on a large scale as an art installation.
Here’s the instructions:
Materials
- Cork circle
- String/thread/yarn/embroidery floss
- Finishing nails (1” long)
- Acrylic paint
- Sponge roller/brush
- Scissors
- Template of map
Instructions
1. Paint the cork circle with the colour of your choice. We used black paint. Let completely dry (about 15 mins). Or leave it au natural.
2. Find a map of your city/province/state/country. Make sure your design fits inside your cork circle. Cut it out.
3. Use nails to outline your design, pushing them into the paper and the cork, about 1/2 an inch apart. Use a thimble if necessary. About 2/3 of your nail should show.
4. Slowly pull the paper out from between the nails.
5. Take some string/thread/yarn and tie one end around a nail. We used gold thread. Start wrapping around the other nails. There isn’t a right or wrong way – just keep going until you like the pattern you created. Mix and match string colours if you like.
6. Outline the circle around the perimeter to make it pop.
7. Tie the loose end to one of the nails. THE END
We did a few variations, like this one that was Spirograph inspired using two different thread colours.
This other one incorporated found images from National Geographic instead of a painted background.