DIY String Art + Craft Night

Oh, craft night.  One of my favorite nights each month.  Our craft night group marked our one year anniversary this month.  We celebrated with delicious food, wine and crafts.  Wait, we do that every month.

Each month, one person hosts.  We all bring an appetizer or dessert to share.  Each month we try a different craft.  We've made yarn wreaths, embroidered tea towels, boxwood wreaths, pottery,  rubber stamps, etc.  Craft night is great for tackling crafts that have been on our lists but we just haven't gotten around to trying.  Craft night also allows us to try crafts that we never would have otherwise.  And my craft night group is made of some of my favorite people in the area.  Aww, mushy.

I hosted this month.  Our craft was string art. 

Ike was super helpful.  Here he is supervising my nailing.  This was in between stealing food and a baby's blanket.  He's a good host.

I have so many favorites about craft night but one of them is that we each take our spin on the project.  So even though we all did hearts, they all look a bit different.  (Well, except for Kim.  I think she was in my garage beating her board to smithereens during this photo.  We don't all win every month at craft night.)

Here's how mine turned out.  I think it's quite charming.

A few people commented on Instagram that they wanted a tutorial.  There are probably 100 better tutorials out there but this is how we did ours.  None of us researched it.  We just assumed nail, wrap string, done.  And that was pretty much right.

Here are the supplies we used for our string art:  nails (small is better), string, wood, hammer.

I started another one (that I need to finish).  We traced our design onto the wood and then went to town nailing.  It's probably best to space them evenly.  I tried to do about a fingers width in between but it didn't always work out that way.  Some of my nails are crooked.  I call it rustic.

Once all of the nails were in, we wrapped the string.  There was no rhyme or reason to this.  I wrapped until it looked pretty.  How's that for scientific?

I then stuck it on my half decorated book shelves in the living room.  Hey, at least my Christmas decorations are finally down.

It's currently living next to baby Nate and Michelle on their wedding day.  Awwww.  Love.

Craft night success.

Do you have a craft night group?  Any great ideas for our upcoming craft nights?

DIY Nursery Mobile | Tutorial

People that follow me on Pinterest were all like "MICHELLE'S HAVING  A BABY!!!" because I was pinning nursery stuff.  I was pinning them onto a board titled "Meg's Nursery".  Meg isn't my alter ego.  She's a college buddy.  Don't you worry.   I'd totally have a secret board for my own nursery business.

I mentioned last week that I did a couple of quick projects to help Meg with her nursery decor. (See the growth chart here!)

One project was a nursery mobile.  Or three.  Triplets.  Wow.

Meg had pinned some ideas of mobiles she liked.  They all involved threading the paper. That seemed difficult. I thought I remembered seeing a mobile similar to the ones Meg liked made by my buddy, Gretchen {Boxy Colonial}.   Gretchen is super smart and used double stick tape to keep the circles together.  I love blog friends.  

Here's how I made my mobile.  I'd say it took around 30 minutes to make one mobile.

Supplies:

1" circle hole punch

2" circle hole punch

clear jewelry thread

cardstock  (I used 4 colors)

embroidery hoop

glue gun

Cut out 1 million circles.  Or if you are making one mobile like mine you will need ten 2" circles of three colors and 1" circles of four colors.

Grab an end of your clear thread.  Start with your bottom color (yellow for me).  Place a piece of double sided tape on one of the circles.  Place the thread on top of the tape.  Seal with a second circle.  Repeat for each dangly piece.  I just eye balled the spacing.  I think they look best with small gap between circles.  Leave a couple of inches of clear thread at the top to attach to the embroidery hoop.

Grab your hoop.  Apply a small dab of hot glue to the embroidery hoop.  Attach the clear clear to hot glue.  Allow to cool.  Move onto next strand spacing evenly apart.

Apply string to hang from the ceiling using a hook.

These nursery mobiles were a lot easier to make than I expected.  Always a pleasant surprise.

Hiding anything good on your Pinterest boards?  Do tell.

DIY Dining Cart Tutorial

Remember our precious dining cart that we posted about last year?  (I love jokes like that in January.)

We're here with the dining cart tutorial so you can build your very own.

I'm glad Nate humors me and my crazy furniture building ideas.  I like that he now makes my ideas come out better than I can even imagine.  That's love.  Enough mushy stuff.  Let's get to the tutorial which Nate wrote for the blog.  (Also love.)

Material List

8 - 2"x4"x8'

2"x3" - Only need 28", so get the smallest one possible, or rip a 2"x4" down

2 - 3/4" x 6' black iron pipe

4 - black iron end caps

4 - industrial wheels

2 - corner brackets

2 1/2" pocket hold screws

Kreg jig mini

wood glue

Construction adhesive (we use Loctite Power Grab)

Black spray paint

Small nails or upholstery tacks 

Cut List

2"x4"

4 - 30.5" (sides)

6 - 45" (outsides of shelves)

6 - 38" (middles of shelves

6 - 7" (ends of shelves)

2"x3"

4 - 7" (middles of sides)

Start by building the sides, using pocket holes and glue.  Attach the 7" 2x3 to the top and bottom of the 30.5 2x4.  I used one hole at the tops of the 2x3's as it will be hidden by the shelves.

Next, build the 3 shelves.  I attached the two outside 7" 2x4's to the 45" 2x4 with wood glue and pocket holes on the bottom of the shelf.  

Using wood glue and pocket holes attach the two 38" middle 2x4's, then attach the other outside 45" board.  Repeat for other 2 shelves.  If some of the boards are a little uneven, sand with belt sander or use a planer to even.

Using pocket hole screws, attach the bottom shelf to the bottom of the 2 sides.  

Then mark 13 3/4" up from the bottom shelf on the sides, attach the middle shelf using those marks with pocket hole screws. 

Finally, attach the top shelf to the top of the sides.

Drill holes for the rods in the back, measure up 5" from the bottom and middle shelves, then in 5/8".  Drill hole slightly larger than the pipe, the hole for ours was 7/8".  When drilling, put a scrap board behind the 2x4's in order to prevent the back side from "exploding" when the bit goes through.

Sand any remaining uneven surfaces.  Stain or paint and poly.  We used Rust-Oleum wood stain in weathered gray.

Using a hack saw, cut the black iron pipe so when a cap is placed on one end it will go into the opposite hole about 3/4". Test fit the cut, leaving it in the board, measure the remaining length needed (probably about 1 1/2" or so).  Cut that length off of the remaining pipe, making sure to keep the threaded part.  I did this in order to keep the threads on both sides so the cap will screw on.  There is probably a tool that will put threads on the end of the pipe after it is cut but I don't do that much work with this material so this seemed cheaper than buying a tool only to use it once.  Put end cap on short piece. Test fit making adjustments as necessary.  Put construction adhesive around the end of the cap and down pipe a bit, and on the longer pipe put adhesive on the end once just before putting it into the opposite hole.  Repeat for second shelf.  Let glue dry.

If you cannot find vintage corner brackets and wheels, use new brackets (inexpensive ones from any hardware store) and beat them up a bit with a hammer.  We spray painted ours black.  We purchased these wheels and gave them the same treatment.

Attach the corner brackets with nails or tacks to the top front corners. We used upholstery tacks.  Note: You will have to spray paint nail or tack heads to match brackets.

Attach wheels to bottom of the cart, I placed mine on the outside, with the end of the wheel on the end of the shelf.

Place your dining cart in it's home and fill it with beautiful Pyrex.  Or whatever you want to store, I guess.

Nate and I are now talking built in shelves for the living room.  Pesky tax season is going to make that a long process but we'll get there!

Check out our "build it" page for more free furniture building tutorials!

Any furniture builds in your future?

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