Rustic Christmas Wall Art

Here's a project I saw made on CityLine the other day.  I'm trying not to buy any Christmas decorations this year....so being creative...here I come.

First I used my hubbies circular saw.  How.brave.am.I? Seriously people. This is a big step for me.

Ok, so I used his saw to square up a piece of particle board we had kickin around in the basement...gave it a quick coat of Zinsser Bulls-eye Primer....followed by a couple coats of some shiny silver spray paint...just 'cause that's what I have.  Silver and flat black. That is all.

Next step.  Draw a Christmassy picture on your board....or...for those less artistically inclined - print out an outline.

Place your diagram on your board and hammer finishing nails along the outline of your picture.  You can get all sorts of nice finishing nails according to what colors you want in your diagram (or you can use plain ol' ones and color them with markers!)

 I found you want to space the nails about an inch apart.  On straight lines you can set them further and on areas with lots of curves you want them closer together.

When you've got all your nails hammered in, take some twine or yarn and outline the diagram.  Tie a loose end around one nail and start winding the yarn around each consecutive nail (hope that makes sense!)  Check the diagram if it doesn't.  Just do enough yarn to ensure you've put enough nails in.  If you don't have enough, your picture will look shapeless....so put in more nails!  Next, take your yarn back off and tear off the paper (if you've used a print out).  Redo your yarn outline.  You can leave just the outline or fill it in by randomly going back and forth across the middle as I have done.

The olive branch on mine looked messy and shapeless so I used a green permanent marker to color the nail heads and twine so you can tell what it is!

I love the way it turned out but I'm really thinking it needs a frame of some sort....something to make it stand out against our wall color.  I think I'm going to make another one too...maybe a taller Christmas tree one?  On CityLine, the lady used a board 2 ft by 4 ft and made a landscape with snow drifts and a tree!