Whether with monogrammed letters, a short poignant word or a full phrase, you can easily adorn your home with this ultra-simple do-it-yourself version of a shabby chic Anthropologie decorating technique. The only items you need to achieve this look are long nails and yarn in your choice of colors.
Choose the letters or word(s) for your wall art. With a word processing program, type the letters in the font of your choosing (sans serif is preferable for simplicity of the project). Print them individually in the sizes you desire for the final project, then tape them or otherwise hang them temporarily on your wall where the wrapped letters will be. They will serve as a template for your yarn-wrapped letters.
Position a single nail at one of the corners of your first letter. Hammer it about 1/4 of the way into the wall so that plenty of nail is left to wrap yarn around. Insert nails, only ever 1/4 of the way into the wall, at all the corners of the letters. Use more nails, as necessary, to outline the curves of any rounded letters. When all the nails are hammered into the wall evenly, tear the paper templates from the wall, leaving the nails intact.
Tie the end of a skein of yarn to the first nail you hammered. Pull the yarn taut between the first nail and the next nail in the outline, then wrap the skein around the second nail to secure it. Continue to the third nail and wrap again, then repeat around the letter’s edge until you reach the first nail again. Wrap around the entire letter again as many times as necessary to make the outline increasingly visible from a distance. Tie the yarn to the first nail when you are finished. Repeat the process to outline the remaining letters.
Use a single color for all of the letters, alternate between two primaries or even wrap a single letter in a different color per pass using multiple, complementary hues. For an especially eye-catching look, try making your own ombre-like effect by “fading” to white as you wrap; use a saturated version of your chosen color for the first letter and increasingly lighter variations on it for each subsequent letter. The same technique can be used to make simple, angular shapes such as stars.