Jenn's "Georgia Love" Art

I saw this on Pinterest done with Texas and I knew I had to do one for my home state of Georgia.  The original pin came from craftgawker.com, but I could never find a link that gave me instructions.  But it seemed simple enough....

Supplies needed:

    Canvas

    Spraypaint (I used black)

    White and Red Pins

    White Thread

    Glue Gun

    A lot of time and patience!

First I spraypainted my canvas black.  I used black because it goes with the black accents in my livingroom, but you could use any color.  Then I downloaded a map of the state of Georgia.  I took the map to Kinkos to get it enlarged to fit my canvas.

Then I started placing my white pins.  The pins I got were too long, so I had to use a wire cutter to shorten them.  For my 10"x14" canvas, I used about 240 white pins.  Because of the wooden frame holding my canvas together, the pins along the edge went into the wood and sometimes required a hammer (or really strong thumbs).  Map areas that were more than an inch or so from the edge, just went through canvas, so they were not secure.  I used a glue gun to secure these pins, inserting and gluing a few pins at a time. FYI: super glue does not work for this! (trust me)

There are a few strategies for getting your pins in the shape of your state.  You can just eyeball it.  You can lay your map over your canvas, pin all of it, and tear the map off.  Or you can do what I did:  I placed the map on the canvas and put in a few pins, then removed the pins and map.  This left a small hole in the canvas, so I could reinsert the pins without the paper map.  I did this for all the curvy areas, but I just freehanded the straight parts.  It's not perfect, but you can tell what state it is.  Later we figured that you could probably use some styrofoam or cardboard as a backing to secure the pins without having to glue them.  That might be easier when it comes to stringing the pins together.

Next, select your most loved city.  We chose Macon, GA because that is where my husband and I met (and it's conviently in the dead center of Georgia)! :)  Cut out a paper heart to use as a guide and place the red pins, but do NOT glue them!  Now get out your string and your patience.  If you are a perfectionist, like me, then you may want to plan out how many white pins will be strung to each red pin (count white pins & divide by number of red pins) or you can just estimate as you go. Cut a long piece of white thread and knot one end.  Add a small needle to the thread.  Remove one red pin and insert thread through that hole so that the knot is in the back of your canvas.  Go around the closest white pin and make a loop or eight around the next white pin and return back to your red pin.  This should give you two white lines from the red pin to two different, adjacent white pins.  Return the red pin to the hole and loop your string around the pin.  Repeat the loop process around two more white pins and back around the same red pin. 

You will likely need to hold the red pin to keep your string taught and keep your red pin from falling out - this is where it might be helpful to have a styrofoam backing to temporarily hold your red pin.  Continue for as many white pins as you want going to this red pin.  Then cautiously remove your red pin, keeping all the white string loops on your pin.  Pull the end of your thread through the same pinhole and then reinsert your red pin.  Knot your thread, keeping it tight.  You can now carefully glue that one red pin.  Repeat the entire stringing process for each red pin in your heart.  You're finished and ready to hang it!  :)  

Good luck!  About a fourth of the way into the stringing process, I was ready to hurt somebody.  I think using a temporary backing would have helped a lot, but I didn't think about it until later. If anybody tries this, let me know if it works!

-Jenn P.