How to Make your own Rustic Barn Wood String Art Heart

Use leftover scrap wood you have on hand to create beautiful, rustic string art!  This barn wood string art heart was so easy to make and adds a ton of farmhouse charm to our little girl’s nursery.

Hello, again!

It’s Sarah, back from Making Joy and Pretty Things to share with you a fun and easy way to make your own string art.

If you haven’t been over to my blog in a while, you may have missed that its been completely taken over with our farmhouse girl’s nursery design and plan.  Here are some of the fun projects we have completed in her room so far:

I’m so excited to start focusing on making the smaller details and projects for the room.  One of the design elements in the room I can’t wait to start on is some farmhouse shelves for above the dresser.  I’ve picked up a few little farmhouse decor items here and there but I wanted to have a few things I’ve made, too.

That’s when I decided to make a rustic string art heart.  The old barn wood combined with ombre pink thread fits so well into her farmhouse (yet girly) nursery.  Plus, I think it will look so pretty sitting on some chippy paint shelves!

A great bonus to this project is you can really use supplies you have on hand.  I started with a piece of barnwood left over from our DIY farmhouse shelves, but who says you can’t just use any scrap wood in your basement?

Once it was cut down into a smaller square, I dry brushed a bit of my favorite chalked paint onto the top and sides of the wood.

Next, I printed out a heart shape from Picmonkey (this is totally free to do!).  It took a few tries to get the exact sizing down.  But, once I had the right size, I roughly cut out around the heart.

Next, I used these nails and a hammer and hammered in 4 nails around the heart.  I hammered these 4 nails in to make sure the paper adequately secured all the way around.

With the 4 nails in place, I randomly hammered more nails around the black outline of the heart.  I put them all pretty close together.  But, I honestly didn’t pay a ton of attention to the spacing.  You want to hammer them in just enough  that they feel secure.  Be careful not to hammer your fingers 😉

Next, I carefully tore the paper out from under the nails.

Finally, grab your favorite thin string and tie it on one of the nails.  My friend had given me some pretty ombre pink string that was perfect for the heart.

Then, start wrapping the string around the nails.  Try criss-crossing the heart (or other shape) as much as possible so it looks random.  Every so often I would stop and see if one area looked thinner than another and try to focus on that area a bit more.

I didn’t really take any pictures of the progress.  But, it only took me 10 minutes or so to do the whole heart.  One I was satisfied, I tied off the end of the string on another nail and snipped the excess off with scissors.

And, that’s it!  Such a funny and easy DIY that adds some rustic, yet girly, charm to her nursery.

Unfortunately, I don’t have her farmhouse shelves set up yet  So, I snapped a few photos on our DIY farmhouse shelves we made last summer.

I love how it turned out AND how easy and inexpensive it was to make.  The total cost for me was $0.  I borrowed the nails and thread from a friend and used a piece of scrap barn wood I had on hand.   Check around your house for some leftover thread and scrap wood, pick up the nails and you’re set to make your own string art!

Until next month…

Wishing you a joyful day!