Introduction: Flower String Art

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About: INFJ weird, wife to a handsome man, and mom to three beautiful girls. Love to do anything crafty, not really good at it but I try.

I remember my grandmother had a string art rooster on her kitchen wall when I was young. I always wanted to learn how to make it, because it looked so cool. So I thought why not, but I definitely did something cooler than a rooster.

According to my husband the pattern of each color is called a cardioid, or heart. Also, that there is a mathematical component to making the pattern. Who knew that the boring math I learned in high school that I hated would actually come into use one day. Sweet!

I hope this inspires anyone and everyone to make something with string!

Step 1: Supplies

Gather the following supplies:

  • Wood board of any kind and size. I used a 24" X 24" MDF board.
  • String of any colors, doesn't matter how many. The more colors the more petals. I bought the cone string so I wouldn't run out in the middle of my project.
  • Nails - These are 1" linoleum nails. They have a very small head.
  • Tack hammer is best to use due to its smallness.
  • Scissors of course
  • Paper to make your number chart
  • Pencil for making a circle on your board
  • String of any kind to help make a perfect circle
  • Ruler to measure the board and nail placement
  • Ice Pack - because you will hit your fingers with the hammer!

Step 2: Prepping

I know I know, I forgot to paint the board before I started making my circle. Duh! So definitely paint it first then measure the diameter to find the midpoint of the board. My diameter was about 17", I just guessed as to what I thought looked good. I used the midpoint as an anchor to make a perfect circle by cutting a length of twine and tying a pencil to the end. I know this has a special name to it, but I am an old lady and can't remember it.

Anywho, once you have your circle you will need to now measure out the placements of the nails. I spaced my nails at 1/4" apart because I wanted my final project to be very vibrant. The wider apart the more open space there will be between your individual strings. I guess I could have drilled the holes first, but I really wanted to pound away at something and bruise up my fingers in the process!

Step 3: MATH!

How the math works to make the flower pattern:

On my wood board I made a circle that ended up having exactly 200 nails, and I knew that I wanted to use 6 different color strings. So I divided 200 by 6 and came up with 33, meaning that in order to make the flower petals I was going to start my new color 33 nails away from my previous color string beginning nail.

I am sorry I didn't take a picture before I started winding the string, but you can see where I marked the head of the nails I was using as starting points for my colors.

If you want you can make a number chart for the nails instead of numbering your board, just make a circle of paper to fit around the outside of the circle of nails and number each nail on the paper. I chose to not do this, because it would just annoy me.

I chose to work clockwise, because it seemed to work best for being right handed.

I wanted to make the math really easy on myself so I was going to use the multiplication method of 2. In other words, at my beginning nail I multiply it's number (which was # 1) by 2, thus looped my string around the # 2 nail from the inside of the circle. With my string looped around # 2 nail, I then multiplied # 2 by 2 to get 4. Again from the inside of the circle loop around # 4 bringing the string back down the outside of the circle to # 3. Next multiply # 3 by 2, from the inside of the circle take the string and loop it around # 6 nail and bring the string back down on the outside of the circle to # 4. Next multiply # 4 by 2, and from the inside of the circle take the string and loop it around # 8 nail and bring the string back down on the outside of the circle to # 5 and continue until your string that is wrapping each number ( not the part that is wrapping by 2) goes all the way around the circle and gets to your beginning point.

So as you can see you start off your string wrapping every nail and extending it by the nail's multiple of 2.

When you meet back up again to your beginning point, you should have a heart shape design. Tie off the string.

Step 4: Keep Wrapping You Will Get There!

So now that you have the hang of it you can start the second string. Remember to start at the next marked nail that was to the left of my initial string beginning nail because I am working clockwise, and for me it was the # 33 nail. I now labelled this nail as my # 1, because it was the beginning point. And I started my multiplying by 2 and looping up the inside of the circle and down the outside of the circle. When you are looping up it is always the multiplier of 2 nail that you will be looping around, and the nail that is being looped when coming down the outside of the circle will always be the next nail in line that is being multiplied by.

Got it ?!

Sorry for not having a video, I didn't have anyone to help me hold it. :(

There are a few videos online, but from what I saw there were no instructions just a video of the person making a string art project without dialogue.

Overall, a fun project that only took about 5 hours to do. I did end up with two bruised fingers from the nail hammer fiasco, just beware!