I started this project some months ago. It ended up being waaay more difficult than I had thought. The thumbtacks did not want to push into the plywood as easily as I’d hoped. Go figure.  After many broken tacks and two very sore thumbs later, I decided to start hammering a nail in first to make a hole then hammer in the tacks. Much, much easier but still very time consuming.  In the end it turned out well.  The tacks do poke out the back of the wood since it’s such thin plywood. I had planned on covering the back with something before hanging it, but ended up just leaning it against the wall. I was just ready for this project to finally be done.

I used a big piece of  quarter inch thick plywood that I had leftover from another project for this. I stained it with an ebony color wood stain we had lying around. It took several coats to get it the color I wanted.

I let that set for a few days until it had completely dried. Then I cut out and taped on the silhouette that I had printed at FedEx Office. You can get large black and white prints on their blueprint paper for pretty cheap.  I figured that was the way to go since my drawing skills never developed properly.

I put the tacks in around the outline, and then took the paper off. In hindsight, it would have been easier to have just traced it instead of taping it on. Some of the paper got stuck under the tacks when I took it off and it was hard to get it out. Oh well. Live and learn.

Once I got done with the outline I just had to fill it in. This. Took. Forever. Not gonna lie. I will never ever try to put this many tacks in wood again. Ever. But hey, nearly 3,300 thumbtacks and 2 very sore thumbs later, it looks good!

I made these beer glass silhouette nail and string art for Chad for Father’s Day. They were much easier than the other’s I made for Father’s Day. You can read that post for a detailed tutorial. For these I used leftover pieces of a 1″x8′ board that I had, so I used 1 inch nails instead of  the longer ones I used with the 2″x8′ boards. We ended up hanging them back behind our basement bar. Pretty snazzy.

I made these back in June as Father’s Day gifts and am just now getting around to posting about them.  I know, I’ve been slacking off. I’m a slacker. But anyways, the first one I did was the elk for my dad. It turned out better than I had expected it to since most of the new projects that I try end in failure. So I was pleasantly surprised when it turned out actually looking like it was supposed to.  I decided to make another moose one for Chad’s dad.  It was slightly easier than the elk since the elk antlers were a bit of a pain in the butt. I also made Chad some beer glass ones that we hung behind our bar.

I went to Lowe’s and got an 2″x8′ board and had them cut it into equal sized sections for me and I sanded down the rough edges when I got home.  I stained my boards with ebony colored wood stain. It’s what I had on hand, but you could use any color you want. I only put on one light coat because it didn’t want it to be too dark. Then I let that dry over night and then got to work.

I searched Google images for silhouettes of what I wanted and edited the image to make sure it would print out to be the right size for me boards. It’s okay if when you edit them image it’s low quality and really pixilated, remember that you really just need the basic shape. Then cut out the image and tape it in place.

Then the fun part. You get to smash your fingers while hammering in nails around the edge of your picture. I used 1 1/4 inch long nails. You want them to still be sticking out about 1/2 – 3-4 of an inch. I left about 1/2 inch spaces in between each nail, but put some closer together in some areas like corners so the shape would be right once I went around with the string.

Once you have all your nails in, it’s time to string it. I bought a big spool of crocheting thread from Hobby Lobby. Tie the end on to a nail and then go around each nail, looping it around so it stays tight in place.Go all the way around your picture and then loop it around the last nail.

Once your done with that, you’ll want to take off the paper, then take your string and just start zig-zagging your way across the whole thing. Make sure you loop all the way around each nail so it stays tight.

Once you’ve got it covered to your liking, just pick a nail to tie it off on, cut your thread and violi! Not too terribly difficult.  Although I had quite a crick in the neck by then time I got done.