It’s been nearly two and a half years and I still feel like a piece of my heart is stuck in Athens, Ga. For my college roommate’s 25th birthday this month, I decided to get crafty and bring out our love of the Classic City.

Inspired by a few Pinterest projects and Esty finds, I decided to get to work on channeling our love for Athens and all things DIY with this string and nail artwork.  After deciding on the design, I headed over to Home Depot for materials.

My dad is my go-to for anything involving a saw, but a limited timeline means I didn’t have the chance to drive home and have him help on this project. And as much as my little heart is set on owning a table saw, that’s not quite feasible in a city apartment. Home Depot to the rescue.

Did you know you can pick out any piece of lumber and a Home Depot team member will cut it for you? For free? Yup. Done. Total cost for the wood? A grand 51¢.

I picked out a piece of 2′ x 2′ plywood, a set of 5/8″ nails and opted to use twine I already had at home to create the design (though colored embroidery thread would have worked as well, especially if the surface area was smaller).

After sanding and painting the background, I sketched an outline of the state and decided to use this template taped to the wood and remove the nails once I was finished. I found this easiest as I could really pay attention to the finer lines and not leave any pencil marks behind.

My state of Georgia sketch. Not too shabby for my poor drawing skills.

Lots of nails and weaving twine later, I had the perfect birthday gift and a little reminder of the place we both called home for so long.

The finished product

Materials:

• Plywood (I used a piece 2′ x 2′, this is a bit larger than I had seen, but it allowed the string to show much more clearly in my opinion)
• Paint
• Sandpaper
• Nails (5/8″)
• Twine