Michigan Crafts

On my day off that I took last week I was perusing my favorites saved on Etsy for some art to fill up the gallery wall I'm planning. I decided I wanted to include some home state love so I went searching for some mitten art. My favorite that I came upon is the following:

source

It is super cool and would look great among my gallery! The etsy shop that makes these charges $110 for one of these beauties! Since I'm trying to accumulate many pieces of art for my wall, I can't really afford one to be so much money! So, I put on my crafty hat and decided to make my own! Lucky for me, J decided to help out! And now, I'm sharing my How-To with you! It looks like a lot of steps but we completed it in one day and it only took a couple hours of hands on time. 

Here are the supplies you'll need:

1. MDF Hardboard. We picked this up at Home Depot. You could get fancier with a nicer wood but I don't really think it's necessary since it gets painted anyways! (Although you could do it on a really nice stained piece of wood for a completely different look!)

2. Some helpers! Oh, and a roller or paint brush. A hammer, and drill (optional) are also needed but are not pictured.

3. Some craft paint (I chose a deep blue to go with my peacock blue couch), string (I chose ivory but any color can be used), and weatherstrip nails (I like copper for the rose gold look but they also come in silver and yellow gold). The nails are from Home Depot and the paint and string are from Michaels.

Alright, now we're ready to get started! 

Step 1: Cut down your wood to size. Lucky for me, I had J on hand to do the dirty work for me! But you can get your wood cut down at Home Depot if you don't own a saw.

Step 2: Paint your board. I used a roller but in hindsight I would have used a paint brush because the roller soaked up a lot of the paint. The acrylic paint dries quickly so I worked on the edges while the face dried and then applied a second coat. 

Step 3: If you have pets, never ever leave your board unattended while it is drying! I learned this the hard way.

Step 4: After you clean off your cat's paws... print out a picture or map of your state. We had to print the lower and upper peninsulas on separate sheets of paper to make the image large enough. Place your map on your canvas and line it up where you want it placed. 

Step 5: Use a hammer to create pilot holes along the outline of the map. Since we will be removing the nails to take the paper off, the nails only need to be nailed in part way to create the template. Don't forget to nail in a heart around your home town!

Note: A better way to complete this is to use a drill bit to drill the pilot holes. Tape your template down onto the canvas and drill along the outline of the map. 

Step 6: If you used a hammer and nails, remove the nails and remove the paper.

Step 7: Use the pilot holes to hammer your nails in. At this point, J drilled my holes for me so I didn't spend hours trying to hammer all of the nails in to the same height. I really encourage you to use a drill to create your holes rather than trying to hand hammer the nails in. The nails go in much straighter that way. Paint your heart before you insert the nails!

Step 8: Insert your nails into the pilot holes. This should be a piece of cake, they should just slide right in! 

Step 9: It's time to string! The entire lower peninsula should be strung with a continuous thread so make sure you start at a good spot! The majority of the lower peninsula should connect to the heart (the upper portion of the lower peninsula won't reach our heart so I just did as much as possible). 

Continue threading the string back and forth around the nails until you've completed the lower half. Cut your string and tie it off, then start on the upper peninsula. 

There you have it! It was so fun to make and I'm really proud of the outcome! Here's the final product.

It will look great in our room and it was made for less than $20! 

If anyone wants one for a present, just let me know ;-) 

<3