String Art Husband and Wife Gift

I mentioned in this post how well my plan to give thoughtful gifts went. As promised here is the first installment!

Being a part of a multilingual congregation provides me the opportunity to be friends with people from all over the world. Literally. Some of my dearest friends are from 2 different countries and their husbands are from 2 other different countries. My mind instantly started rolling with what to do for their gifts. I love that they love their countries and I wanted to honor that.

I came across this idea on Pinterest and wanted to do something similar.  My creative juices started flowing and here's what I came up with!

My dad cut a board for me and I sanded it and painted it black. I knew I needed a rectangle to do what I wanted to do with it!

 I measured my board and printed maps according to the size of the countries I wanted. I rummaged through my dad's tools and found nails the color and size I wanted.

I cut around the perimeter of the maps leaving a lip for me to pull it off later. I nailed down some of the main points and then continued around the whole map. 

After the nails were all the way around I started pulling off the map. I blundered with the first map and taped it to the board underneath. It took forever to get it up and messed up a few places. I learned quickly just to put a nail or two in first and then continue.

 Pulling it up left one issue that was quickly solved with tweezers. the nails held the paper in some places my fingers couldn't reach. I was able to work it out using some cosmetic tweezers.

 I didn't take a picture of wrapping the string because it took all ten fingers and then some! ha! The key was to keep it tight. Tie it to one nail and use that as your anchor nail. After you wind the whole map be sure to return to the anchor nail and tie it off. I wanted to make sure the amount of knots I used was minimal as to reduce any chance of it coming undone. 

After knotting it I used regular super glue over the knots. Tight as a drum...ish! 

Because hubby's country was on the left and the wife's on the right I wanted to add a heart in the middle to represent the couple. My first thought was to hand paint it.

Um, no.

Next thought was a paint pen. Great idea...really bad outcome. To make a LONG story short, true red is Hobby Lobby lingo for neon pink and really red is actually salmon. Sigh. Thinking I ruined the whole project (see below) I was super bummed. I was sure I had to sand it down, paint it again, and I would have to be back to the hand painting method. 

 Then along comes great idea #2. I remember the wooden cut shapes at craft stores like Hobby Lobby and A.C. Moore. Thus the 100th trip to the craft store where I scored 2 heart shaped wooden pieces for a total of $0.54. PERFECT! Brought those boogers home, painted them the color red I wanted, and glued them to the boards. Not only did they look the way I wanted, they fit PERFECTLY over the mess I made with the paint pens. Can I say PERFECT enough?! It was PERFECT!

 The finished product was AWESOME!

 Japan gave me the WORST time. I hated it! Island, after island. My fingers were pretty sore! But, *whispers* it looked the coolest, but I didn't say that!

 I added with a Sharpie paint marker the names of the countries just in case they looked really bad.

 TaDa! I had already wrapped the Ecuador/Puerto Rico combination! But you get the idea!

Creative gift #1!

More to come!