How to Create Thumbtack Art

When it comes to mixed-media artwork like this thumbtack project, your choices are limitless. This is the time to use your creativity and decide on a theme, colors and the materials you want to use. Here are a few suggestions to help you get started.

Colors
Think about the room your art is going in. Our office had a neutral palette, so we used a cork background and brass tacks to coordinate. But in this child's playroom, we wanted to play off the cheerful navy and coral walls by using brightly-colored tacks to create a heart shape.

Themes
If you're doing this craft for kids, it's a great time to think about their favorite interests. Do they love sports, princesses or animals? The simpler the design, the better.

Here are a few ideas for kids:

• Create the outline of a cat, dog, butterfly or dinosaur.
• Use thumbtacks to make a baseball, basketball or football.
• Hearts and flowers are easy to create.
• Make a lowercase or uppercase initial that they can place over their bed.

Try these themes for grownups:

• Use tacks to create your initials or a favorite quote.
• Create a coffee or tea cup and add the art to your kitchen.
• For fashion lovers, consider making a dress, shoe or purse.
• A martini, champagne flute or wine glass is a fun accent for your bar cart.
• Don't forget the holidays. Make a bunny for Easter, a pumpkin for Halloween or a Christmas tree. These would make cute additions to a powder room or mantle.

Materials
Now that you've figured out what your theme will be, select the background. Here are a few options:

• Wrap your base in a piece of fabric. Burlap works well for a rustic look. Linen feels more sophisticated. You can also use leftover fabric from an upholstery project.
• Wallpaper and even wrapping paper work well as a background.
• Paint the canvas your favorite color.

Now that you've chosen your color scheme, theme and materials, we'll show you how to create this wall art in five easy steps.

Are you feeling inspired? Here are a couple of other considerations and a quick tutorial for each.

In the first image, we were inspired by the bright, happy colors in this child’s playroom. We drew a heart on a piece of paper, cut it out and traced it onto the burlap. The outline was done in white thumbtacks and the middle was adorned with multi-colored thumbtacks.

In the right image, we found an extra piece of wallpaper and wrapped it around a piece of canvas. Then we used brass furniture tacks to create a lower-case “e” initial and a small border in each corner.