Last Thursday was my wife's twenty-second birthday, and in true me-style I had to make her something. Simply buying a present is never enough. For quite a while I had no idea what to make her, then after looking on Pinterest, I found this, and decided that it would be perfect.
After a quick trip to Wickes to buy supplies, I set to making the string heart, starting with a piece of timberboard:
I then spray-painted it in silver, trying to make sure I didn't get any of our bedroom painted in the process. After three or four thin coats I decided it was covered well enough, as I still wanted the wood grain to show through:
Next, I grabbed a piece of brown paper and sketched out a heart shape, trying to ensure that it filled as much of the wood as possible without being a very warped shape. This is the heart I ended up with, and then taped onto the wood:
Then came the noisy bit (which definitely confused my wife to hear); hammering in nails around the edges of the heart. I tried to make them evenly spaced around the shape, although this inevitably didn't quite happen.
Once I'd carefully removed the brown paper, this is what I was left with:
Now it was time to attach the string. I actually used some red double knitting wool I had lying around. After tying it around the bottom nail I proceeded to fill in the heart, making sure each nail was used at least once and then just playing it by ear to make a pattern that I found pleasing. To finish off the heart I wrapped the wool all the way around the outside of the heart to help shape it, tied the wool to the bottom nail again and then used a little clear nail varnish to help secure it.
After finishing the string heart, I had the slightly interesting job of trying to hide such a large present somewhere in our one bedroom flat without my wife catching sight of it, or any of the supplies I'd used to make it!
Here's a quick picture of my wife on her birthday, with the cake I made her:
