A simple rustic sign to make

The kids had the day off school the other day for the teacher strike and I'm not a big fan of days where we don't do something, so I decided to tackle a project that I'd had on my Pinterest board for a while.  It was so quick, easy and rewarding (and free!) that I thought I would share it here - you might be hankering for a sign for your home, a project for the kids or a gift idea and this could be just the thing!

You will need:

• A piece of timber the size you want your finished sign - we used rustic old boards from a packing box we picked up for free.  You could use old palings or timber from a pallet, or for a sleeker finish, an offcut of dressed pine that you've painted.
• small nails with a flat head on them (bullet head nails could allow your yarn to slip off)
• Jute string or some sort of yarn (the boys used coloured leftover yarn)
• Hammer
• Grey lead pencil and maybe a ruler and eraser
• Scissors
• About 1/2 an hour of free time.

What you do:

1. Prepare your timber - cut to size or paint as you need.  We were lucky in that our timber was just the size we wanted.
2. Write your letters/word on the timber with your pencil.  The boys did their initials and I wrote HOME.  You could choose anything you like.  Nice big block letters work well, but use your imagination.
3. When you are happy with the layout of your word, lay your timber on a sheet of scrap wood or a work bench and start hammering in your nails.  You will need them to be firmly into the timber, but not through the timber, and sticking out about 1.5-2cm.  You need the nails about 2cm apart on the letters, and make sure you put them neatly in each "intersection" of the letters.
4. Once you have all of your nails in, tie the end of your yarn or string to one of the nails, leaving about 10cm of tail, then weave away!  I made mine so that there were 5-7 layers of the yarn between each set of nails.  It doesn't have to be equal, but you want to build up a decent wall of yarn. 
5. Finish your weaving back at the starting point.  Cut the yarn and tie it tightly to the tail you left at the start.  Trim the ends.
6. Now do the same on each of your letters.
7. We hung ours using 3 strands of yarn as a hanger, but you could leave this out and hang with eye hooks or similar. 
8. Now hang it on your wall and admire your work each time you walk past! (I hung mine in the kitchen wall that is visible as you walk in the front door, hubby saw it as soon as he came home and loved it.  The kids hung theirs above their beds.)