IS IT POSSIBLE TO PUT THIS NIGHT TO TUNE AND MOVE IT TO YOU?

I am getting at that age when all of my dear friends (myself included) are graduating and getting to that point where we are starting to figure what we are doing with our lives and where we are going. Quite the turning point in our lives- I am still trying to figure out if I want to stay here in Colorado or go somewhere far and new. I just need to take that leap! Just like my dear friend Alix! She is off to California in the next few weeks to begin her sweet adventures.

Since she is leaving soon last night we had a little get together with drinks at 303 Distillery in Boulder. One of my favorite place for a chill night. We had a late night out the night before so we wanted to take it easy and shared a few drinks, a Vootbeer and a Dreamsickle. Deliciousssss- both made with gluten free potato vodka.  As a goodbye present I made Alix this map highlighting her two homes!

This was inspired by a pin on Pinterest- well many pins. I am not sure which is the original but props to them for their clever creativity!  This is my version of it. Since Alix was moving I wanted to make her something related to Colorado and I loved this state/nail/tread art project. However Colorado is possibly the most boring shaped state on the map. Seriously it would have just looked like a box on a board. So I had to brainstorm! I decided to go with the whole country and highlight her two homes California and Colorado.

The process is pretty simple- sorry I didn't document it with photos on my camera so I have a lower resolution version from my ipad that I will include.

It is a lot easier than it looks for the most part.

Materials:

Wooden Plaque

Nails ( 3/4 inch)- try to pick something with a larger head

Hammer

Tread

Print out 

Wood Stain

Super glue- with brush

1. Print out shape of the state or shape of whatever it is you want to do for this project.

2.Varnish your wooden plaque with whatever stain you want and let it dry a bit. I was impatient and immediately started working on the nail parts before it dried and pretty much stained my hands and my clothes with the varnish. I also hammered the plaque all over the place to create a beat up old version.

3.Cut out as close as you can to create a template.

4. Lay it down on your plaque. You can also tape it down so it doesn't shift when you're hammering to keep it from sliding around.

5. Hammer the edges down to create an outline. I just eyeballed the spacing. I did them pretty close to create a more defined outline.

6. Once the outline is nailed down you can just rip it out and begin threading!

7. Threading was the most frustrating part- mainly because the nails I chose had pretty much no head to them. This caused the thread to slide right off every time I tried to wrap them around. But if you get a better type of nail then this wont be a problem for you at all. I had to hold each piece down as I wrapped and create a lot of tension to keep it in place. I didn't have superglue till the end of the project but if I did I would brush each nail tip after I was done with the thread to keep them from moving. Instead I did it at the end to sealllll the dealllllllllll!

For the treading pattern all the ones on Pinterest had strings either did it  in random directions and colors or one color all coming to one point to make a uniformed looked. I tried both- but with doing the entire United States it just did not look as good to me. So I played around for a bit and eventually made each point to make a triangle. I redid this shape in different sizes and directions until it covered most of the open space. I then did the same with the highlighted states but with a brighter color tread.  I also kept all the thread ends hanging to create a vintage vibe to it.

-Amy-

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