Do you ever see inspiration in the most unexpected places? The other day while working on the Owl painting, I found a few bags of those balsa wood shims that come stapled to the back of every stretched canvas you buy. Honestly, I have never ever used them. Nor would I know how to if I wanted to. So I dumped them out on the table and started playing with them. They looked pretty cool (If I do say so myself) and I knew they would be the foundation of my next project.
So I got started. I had a 5x7 frame that I planned on using, so I cut a piece of white card stock to 5x7, laid out the wood shims how I wanted them, and hot glued those puppies down. After seeing all the fabulous string art on Pinterest, I thought this would make an awesome backdrop for a mini version of this. I garnered my supplies and had at it.
I printed out the "love" in a font I thought would work and started hammering satin straight pins around the outline. Only the pins are weak and the wood pieces are weaker. One would go in secure and then by the time I pounded in three more the first ones had been shaken loose. The pins would not stay in and after an hour and a half I was sick and tired of pins falling out and stabbing me. I threw in the towel and admitted EPIC FAIL.
But then I had a wood background full of holes.... oh boy.
Well, I'm a nerd and I know that wood fibers are porous so I decided to dampen them and see if the expansion/shrinkage that would happen might shrink the holes. It worked!! They can hardly be seen now.
After the frustration of admitting it wasn't going to work I decided to take the easy way out and adhere something to the outside.
I do not like red in my home and I have more than enough pink in the girls' room so I chose to go neutral. Subtle is my favorite form of decorating anyway. I crocheted a long single chain with ivory pearl cotton.
Double checked that the word was going to fit how I liked, then cut it out and placed it under a sheet of waxed paper as a template. Using tacky glue I outlined the word and stuck the crochet on top of it. After it dried, I peeled the crochet off the paper, cut off excess globs of glue that formed in places, and painted the back of the words with water so the glue would get tacky again. It was sticky enough to stick to the wood and with that, I called it done.
It's safe to say I LOVE it now. It's raw, and natural, and not too shabby-chic for my liking. So this is one near craft-fail that was salvaged in the end.
Have you ever used those little wood pieces before?
