Turn Your Dog Into Wall Art! Leash/Bag Holder

Today's I'ble is a beginner's guide to string art using an upcycled scrap of wood. You'll be able to customize this project using a picture of your own dog!

This particular piece isn’t only artwork, it’s functional too: it doubles as a leash/bag holder. So handy when your pooch is ready for his/her walk because you can just grab and go!

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• A picture of your dog
• Dollar store mini yarn
• A wooden board or scrap wood
• 1/2″ and/or 3/4″ finishing nails
• Hammer – I use CS Osborne Magnetic Tack Hammer
• Paint, in colours of our choice
• Reverse action tweezers
• Beadsmith 1.5 mm Metal Hole Punch(optional)
• Dollar store letters
• Masking tape
• Paint stick
• Coat hook
• Double side tape
• Drink can, flattened
• Dollar store jump rings
• Wax putty stick (for correcting nail holes)
• Wooden clothes pin
• Electrical wire (optional)

The dog I chose for this art piece is my sister's dog Britney. Both my sisters actually adopted dogs from Mexico a few months apart – first Britney, then Polly. Their angelic sleeping faces belie their respective mischievous streaks.

Britney's mischievous side is kind of funny until you discover her love of books - and not for reading! You see, she has a thing for chewing paper. A few years ago Hubs and I were helping my brother-in-law build an outdoor structure and Britney stole the door plan measurements. See what happens when I try to get it back from her by watching the quick video clip above!

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I used half inch brad nails for the majority of the dog, but switched to 3/4″ nails for elements that I want to stand out. If you find the 3/4" nails easier to nail, use those for the whole project.

For the string, I love 100% cotton and these mini dollar store yarns are great because they come in a variety of colours. While Britney is a black dog, and I stuck with black for her, you can use any combination of colours you like! Be creative with it.

For my backer board, I upcycled MDF that was previously used for centrepieces. It was already cut into this dog house shape. We love to upcycle wherever we can and this project is perfect to use up a scrap piece of wood.

Follow the dimensions in the 3rd picture if you'd like to make your backer board the same size. If I wasn't reusing an already cut piece of wood, I would have made this board a little bigger to fit the scale of the dog I drew. I could have re-drawn the dog to fit, but I pivoted and turned the board sideways instead.

For the template, start with a picture of your dog. Above is the picture of Britney I used.

I pulled this picture off Facebook, but ideally you should take a picture with good contrast. This picture is a little dark and I could have added the part between her legs where her butt meets the grout, but missed that part. It’s best to simplify anyway, so leaving that out is not really a big deal.

The easiest way to make your template is to trace the outline of your dog onto a sheet of tracing paper. Then you can scan it into your computer, scale the size as you wish and print it on regular white paper. Notice in the last picture that I also add a heart.

If you have photoshop and know how to use it, you could create this template by turning the picture into line art. But we're going old school for this one!

Tape the template onto your board in whatever orientation you like. At 1 cm intervals, use the awl and place it on the line as you tap around the outline with a hammer. You only want to make indentations to guide the nails. If you nail through the paper with nails at this point, the paper can be difficult to remove and it can also loosen your nails once the template is lifted. The paper just gets shredded and then you have to pick little bits out from between the nails.

If you accidentally put a hole too close to the previous one, I have a fix for that I’ll show you further ahead.

When you're done, peel the paper off to reveal the holes - but keep the paper template handy in case you need to refer back to it.

Now you're ready to start nailing using the holes. Because of its narrow head, I really like an upholstery tack hammer for this task.

Position a nail in a hole. Hold the nail with the reverse action tweezer.

These tweezers open when you squeeze and close when you release. I find them ideal to hold the nail as I hammer away. They allow you to hold the nail tight - and at a distance so you don’t accidentally hammer your finger. If you’re like me, you learn that the hard way!

Another benefit of these tweezers is that the nail height for these 1/2″ nails is perfectly set every time. Rest the tweezers perfectly flat against the board, then hammer in the nail until the head reaches the top of the tweezers as shown in the second last pic. As you can see from the last shot, the tweezers help keep the height consistent!

If you want an element to stand out, you can use longer nails. Because I want the heart to be more prominent (and originally planned to add the wire heart you'll see later), I switch over to 3/4″ nails for that element.

Nailing Tips

I’ve never come across a tutorial that goes into detail on how to nail, so be sure to watch the video to see firsthand what I’m explaining in this section.

First nail along the right side of dog, stopping in the middle. Then nail the interior elements (in this case, the collar and heart). Proceed with left side of dog. When you come to a curve, nail the holes that are furthest away first. Then work outward. This will allow you to maneuver better with the tweezers to hold the nail. The last picture shows the ear as an example, starting at the head and working out toward the perimeter of the dog.

I thought a few holes closely spaced would better define the shape. However, I find that they’re not really necessary and only crowd the nails making it harder to string. If you end up in the same situation, don’t fret. I have a great way to hide those additional nail holes: grab a wax putty stick!

Since our wax stick is well used (we use it to hide nail holes in our baseboards), it no longer has a pointy tip. That makes it difficult to use for this particular purpose. To combat that, shave some wax off with an X-acto knive and use the point to push the putty into the hole. Buff over it with a piece of cotton to remove any excess.

If a hole is in the interior of your board, use a long nail to reach it and push the putty in with the tip.

As you can see by the before and after pictures above (where my finger is pointing), stick putty does a great job of hiding holes – like they were never there.

Working with nails can be fussy. They don’t always stand straight up and down after hammering. Troubleshooting that problem is easy if you have a wooden clothes pin. The tail end will give you just the leverage you need to push a wonky nail upright. Then use the tweezers to hold it and tap it again to seat it with the hammer.

With its rounded tip, you’ll find the head of the clothes pin comes in hand too (as seen on the video).

Now you’re ready for some embellishments if you'd like to add them!

Extras

Embellishments are optional, but help personsalize your string art dog. I actually do all these extra touches, like painting the letters, just before I finish nailing so paint has time to dry. However, you can leave these for the end if you don't mind waiting. See the next few sections on how to make a dog tag, add the name of your dog and create a heart out of electrical wire.

Flatten a drinking can (you can find details on how to do that in this can craft tutorial). Then use it to make a cute little dog bone tag for your string art dog! Stick the paper template to the can with double sided tape and cut around with scissors. Sand any sharp edges with a super fine sandpaper if you like.

Use a permanent marker to write on your dog’s name.

Punch a hole at the top and add two jump rings. I have a special 1.5 mm jewellers punch for this, but you could use a sharp awl and hammer to create it instead (be sure to put wood underneath before you hammer to protect your work surface). I’ll explain how to add the dog tag to the collar later.

Bend a piece of electrical wire around the outline of the heart. Cut heart with wire snips to trim end and set it aside for later. I was originally going to add this heart right around the nails after stringing it. That’s primarily why I used deeper nails. However, it didn’t really add anything and in the end. So I used it elsewhere on the board.

These laser cut dollar store letters are perfect for adding your dog’s name to your string art dog. You can leave them plain or paint them.

Here’s our best tip for painting tiny objects. Grab a paint stick and some masking tape. Tear off a piece of tape long enough to mount the letters.

Tear off two smaller pieces of tape for the ends. With the long piece, sticky side up, secure it at the ends with the two short pieces.

Stick your letters onto the paint stick! Now you have an easy peasy way to paint them and they won’t shift!

Because Britney’s name is seven letters, I choice to paint each letter in rainbow colours. Arrange each colour if you want to get the order correct: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet.

I use a sponge brush for this because it’s easy to wash and squeeze the water out, ready for the next colour.

When it all comes together in the next step, her rainbow colour name looks fabulous! Set it aside too dry. I didn’t top coat, but you can apply a clear varnish if you like.

I choose black for the main colour of the dog, red for the heart and pink for her collar. With all the nails in place you’re ready to string.

Start at the middle top of the head and knot the string onto a nail. Zig zag around the nails staying above the top of the collar (do not string black through the collar area). Again the video demonstrates this best.

There really is no right or wrong; just ensure that each nail has been strung around at least once. When satisfied with the density of string, come down the side of the collar and continue stringing the lower half. Just like you avoided the collar area, avoid stringing black through the heart.

Once all the black areas are strung, knot it on a nail and tie it off at least twice. Apply glue to all the knots and cut the black string.

Fill in the heart with red and the collar with pink: knot to start, zigzag the string and knot to finish. When doing the collar, pop the dog tab onto one of the lower nails before you start to string it. The string will then hold it in place. Always apply glue to the knots so your string art dog can’t accidentally unravel down the road.

Tape a straight edge to your board, like this paint chip, to provide a straight line for the letters.

Apply glue to the back of each letter and place against the straight edge. Here, I’m using a nail to apply the glue.

Glue down the heart (I used crazy glue) and screw on a double hook. This hook is one I had in my stash and I love it because the two hooks are vertical instead of side-by-side. A double hook comes in handy: I provide the poop bags and my sister will have to supply the leash when she gets it :).

What I like most about this string art dog project is that it’s just as easy as dog paw string art you see all over Pinterest - but so personalized! Do you think you’d make one of these for your dog? For anyone who wants a string art template to play with, we have a pdf for you in our exclusive freebie library. Head to our blog to sign up here to get access.