How to Make Elephant String Art

Looking for some cheap decor? This elephant string art tutorial is too cute and SO EASY! All you need is just a few supplies and some time.

What do we say about trends go full circle? True story…

I told my mom I was making some string art for my Little Miss’s nursery and she laughed hysterically at me and informed me that was the cool thing to do in the 70s.

Since I didn’t finish her nursery before baby arrived, my goal was to keep my crafts simple to finish up her room and this was the perfect project. String art is one of those crafts that does not take a lot of supplies and is so adorable!

Here’s how to make elephant string art, but the general idea can be used for any string art.

Skill level: Easy

What you need to make your elephant string art:

• Board
• Paint
• Tape
• Stencil
• Hammer
• Small nails with a small head to hold the string on
• Embroidery floss — you can grab it in practically every color you can think of at your craft store, I used 5 skeins of DMC 3805

Instructions

1 | Stencil

Find a stencil or outline of what you want your design to be. It’s easy to just google “shape” outline and find many different designs.

If you want to do a shape larger than your printer paper, you should be able to change your printer settings to automatically tile the design to print on multiple sheets.

Decide where you want your stencil on your board and tape it to the board. I just cut down some scrap wood I had in my garage and gave it a few coats of pure white gloss spray paint.

2 | Nails

Once your stencil is attached, hammer a nail in each corner of your stencil. This makes sure that the important points are in the correct spot so your shape turns out looking like what you want it to.

Then, hammer in small nails every ¼-½ inch along the outline. If your kids are helping, they can hand you nails or if they’re older they could even hammer in the nails.

3 | String

Now, the fun part!

Start by tying one end of your string around a nail with a double knot. Cut off the tail close to the knot. Now, start wrapping the string around each nail head going around the whole outline. 

Now, start wrapping the string around each nail head going around the whole outline. Once you’ve made it around the outline, start going across diagonally and wrap and loop and cross over and over again. Be sure you don’t cross a space outside the shape. 

If you run out of embroidery floss, just tie off one end and start a new one.

Related: See this cute purple & giraffe themed nursery.

You can see on the tail I just did one line of nails for the thin piece and then a cluster of nails for the end.

4 | Hang

Attach a sawtooth hanger to the back and you’re ready to hang it up.

I LOVE how this elephant string art turned out and was the perfect addition to Little Miss’s nursery wall along with the felt ball garland I made.  

Now that you see how fabulous and EASY string art can be, you will become addicted! What will you make and where do you plan on putting it? I’d love to hear! Let me know in the comments.