Thoughtful Memories
This homemade mother’s day gift will make your mom smile. Growing up I had 5 siblings and come to think of it I thought it would be an awesome idea to make a gift from all of us dedicated to our loving and caring mom. 😀 😀 I’m sure I’m not the only one on the hunt to find the best meaningful mother’s day gift. The idea behind this gift is to have the heart represent the love for our mom and the row of pictures will be featuring all of us kids. All in hopes that this precious piece of artwork will last for years to come. 😀
Don’t be fooled this nail art is a lot more fun then it looks and it’s a speedy process. This project doesn’t require much attention to detail. You’ll be done in no time.. 😀 😀 😀 I got pretty good at nailing those nails.. I could probably whip another one out in half the time.😃
That’s it 👏 this post may contain affiliate links*
You can use the printables below. Right click to save to your computer. Than you can print them.
If you want to make a cactus inspired gift (photo below) you can get the template here
What you’ll need
- scissors
- wallet prints
- yarn
- wood ( measuring 30″ by 12″ and 3/4 inches in thickness)
- paint or stain
- Nails (measuring 1 1/4 inches length.. make sure they have big heads for the thread to go around) I purchased mine at home depot in the construction nails area. (not the small craft nails)
- mini clothespins (I purchased mine at the $1 store after the ones from Michaels fell apart.. the cheaper ones from the dollar store were way stronger..weird!!)
- hammer
- Concrete floor or Metal for under the wood
optional—>
- copper leaf and gilding
- rope
Let’s Do This !!
Ok so I will start off by saying you will NOT be cutting the top and bottom off the printable.. This is how you will know if your attaching the letters on straight..Only cut off the sides. Example: Like the first letter M is showing on the left. 
I stained my wood board in the color “special walnut”. You can choose to paint or stain yours. If you stain it don’t forget to clear coat with something so you don’t get the stain all over your thread. If painted, it’s a one step deal. Without measuring how far off I wanted the letters from the bottom I simply lined the paper with the wood and measured the gaps in between the letters to make sure they are even. Then I taped them off and started nailing in.
My first letter.. 😀 😀 all done. Don’t forget to start from the center of the heart and work your way around.. Just like drawing one 😀 😀
Here’s a snippet of my mini clothespins.. Gosh it was like dominos.. They wouldn’t hold still. I had to prop them up with mini rocks. hehe. I decided to copper leaf them to match my pink rose gold heart. 😀
If you’re freaking out about adding the yarn to your nails. Don’t overthink it. It’s a lot easier than it seems. All I’m going to say is don’t stick to a very specific pattern. Keep it as messy as possible, it fills in bald spots more that way and looks overall even when finished. I made a similar gift this year with a video instructions. If you want to see what I meant when I said messy check out the video below. (I did a total of five gift DIYS in this video. The string art gift starts at 5:00 minutes.)
Threading
To start threading your letters simply tie a knot at one end and start outlining the whole letter before you start getting all messy. 😀 
Connecting the DOTS. 😀
I did different directions and then went all messy towards the end filling in uneven gaps. 
To finish of your threading simply tie a few knots around the nail heads and cut the remaining yarn off. 
Adding A little Special Something…
Ok so this is totally optional but I decided to add a little more bling and make this heart extra special by copper leafing it to make it rose gold. I dabbed on the gilding adhesive (more on this product below) and left it to dry for 15 minutes before applying the copper leafing to it. 
Here’s where I got the copper leaf and gilding adhesive. I learned that hard way that amazon has the best deals on gilding adhesive. Craft stores sell 25 sheets for $10 vs amazon sells it at 100 sheets for $6. Cant’ beat that! Been buying on Amazon for a while now. I’ve been asking if you can glue the copper leaf on with elmers glue and honestly I don’t know because I’ve never tried. If you did comment below I’d love to know how it went. How is this gilding adhesive different? It doesn’t dry to a completely dry finish like elmers glue does. It dries to a tacky finish which helps the gold leaf adhere better. Ahhhh. Leafing on.. Yes at this point I was thinking how on earth I am going to remove all that.. You could leave it like that. 😀 . LOL. I used a bristle brush to get the process going and then once a bunch of it was stuck in the yarn I blew it out with my husbands air blower. You can also use a vacuum to do this. 
I lay out all the photos to see how close I needed to glue the clothes pins. Remember if your photos are to big you can always cut them to size. That’s what I did with mine. For some reason the wallet prints at Walgreens were huge so, I cut mine down a bit. I ended up fitting 13 pictures and glued my pins measuring 2 1/4 inches apart. 
To seal the deal I used my E6000 glue. And that’s it 😀 😀 .
Oh wait almost forgot.. If your attaching rope. This would be the time to staple it in. 😀 Now that’s it. 
All of us kids are featured on top of that rose gold heart (with a few grand-kids here and there 😀 ) What do you think? Special Enough? I think she’ll love it.. (fingers crossed.)
So many of you ask me where I got my crochet vest. I purchased it online at shopko.com a few years ago. Here are some similar ones. *affiliate links., read more 
Thanks for joining me my lovely craftoholics. Until next time 😀 😀 😀 If you make one for your lovely Mother don’t forget to tag me on Instagram. I would love to see it. (PS. I HAVE A ROUND UP OF 5 Mother’s day DIYS COMING UP IN 2 WEEKS STAY TUNED) . Here are some affiliate links for the products I used to make this project. (If you purchase anything from my affiliate link I might get a small commission. However this DOES NOT result in any additional charges to you. For more info read my disclosure policy) Here’s a cute family photo display tutorial you might like. CLICK HERE 
This is absolutely fantastic and gorgeous! Thank you so much for sharing it with us!
Awe Thank you Helen I am glad you liked it. 😀
Where did you get your wood from?
Hi Giselle. I got my wood from home depot. 😀 Lowe’s sells it as well! 😀 It was pretty big I cut it down to size.
Love Love Love… would like to make one of this as a Christmas Gift for my mom… for the life of me though… I cannot find where the M and heart can be downloaded. If you don’t mind could you email them to me?
Awe thank you Michele. So glad to hear you loved it! Oh man I see what you mean. That’s a bit tricky. HAHA! I email them to you no prob! Sorry about that.
Hi!! Would you be able to email the M and heart to me too? I’m struggling on getting the letters too…and am trying to get this project done by end of this week 😊
Sure I’ll e-mail them right now.
I love this! I may try to attempt for a Mother’s day gift – how far do you recommend pounding down the nails? The E6000 was used to glue the clothespins down correct? Are you also able to email me the M and heart? Thank you!
Hi Kati. 😀 There is two ways to do it. You can do longer nails and do it on a hard surface. Then nails will stop once you hit the hard surface (concrete) or you can do shorter nails and nail them in about 1/2″ and leave 1/4″ to 1/2″ sticking out.
I’m curious, how did you hook the rope on to the back of the board?
I nailed the rope in. Meaning I nailed the nails half way in. Then I lay the rope next to the bent nails and finished nailing in the nail while it was bent. Hope that makes sense. LOL. I didn’t have a heavy duty stapler at the time. I probably would of tried it. Although the rope is pretty thick so it might not have worked anyways.
Hi! Would you mind emailing me the letters as week? Thanks so much!
Sure 😀
I love this! i plan on doing this for Mother’s day for my mom and MIL from my kids. What are the heights of the letters? Or can you email a file that i can edit with the letters i need? (NANA & GAMA) Also, what size did your pictures end up being?
Awe how exciting Stephanie. I’m sure they’ll love it!! 😀 I can’t say for sure what size the letters were because, I don’t have the gift with me anymore and didn’t think to measure them. I printed my photos at walgreens and their wallet size prints were pretty big so I had to cut them all down. If I can remember correctly I think they were 3″ by 3″ after I cut them down to size. I used open-office (just like word doc) to print my letters. Oh I also photoshoped mine to have a border style so my printer doesn’t waste a bunch of ink… totally optional. I believe the font I used was Arial Black (comes with open-office and word doc). Let me know if this helps or if you have anymore questions. If you don’t have access to word doc or open-office I can help 😀 😀
Would you mind please emailing me the letters . Thank YOu
Sure 😀
Just emailed them to you. You should have them now 😀 😀 Have fun crafting!
Hi – would you please email to me too? [email protected]. Thank u!
Yes of course 😀 I’ll send them right over! 😀
I love your idea. I wanted to make one from the kids. Could you send me the letters N and A for Nana please?
Love it. Could you email me the letters N and A for Nana please?
Awe thank you Danielle. Sure 😀 I’ll try and do it tonight.
Thank you. I can’t wait to start crafting.
This is so cute! I am going to attempt to make this for my mom and mother in law!! How long was the rope that you used to hang it with? And where would you suggest the best place to go to buy all the supplies? I am in full time nursing school so I don’t get out much to shop for crafts! Thanks!! And thanks for sharing the instructions on how to create!
Also, I’ve been looking online and having a hard time finding the wood in the right size?
I have tried to download the alphabet file but without success. I am not sure what I am doing wrong. Can you help? Love the project. Doing it with my grandson next week for his Mom’s Mother’s Day gift….
Thanks!
Hi Cathy, I’m so sorry to hear you’re having trouble. Maybe it’s the browser you’re using. I use Mozilla firefox. Also it’s a zip file which means it’s compressed into a smaller folder to download quicker. If you’re using windows you can use winrar to unzip it. On a mac it’s unzips the file automatically once opened. Gosh sounds so technical. Let me see if I can e-mail it to you. Awe how cute! Kids love crafting! Our little guy loves making things like this! I’m sure you’ll have a blast. Happy Crafting! 😀
Can you contact me with your e-mail address so I can email them to you? (under the contact form – top menu)
would you mind emailing me the stenciles please. [email protected] thank you
Sure. 😀
It kinda sucks cus i asked for letters and aigned up two different emails and got nothing in the mailbox. Love the ide and my grNddaughter wanted to do it but no letters!!!!
Oh my gosh I’m so sorry to hear that. I will email them to you right away!
This is such a cool idea Can you please email me the stencils for the letters @ [email protected]
Awe Thank you Bailey. Sure I send them right over. 😀
Can you please email me the letters! Want to make this for my mom! [email protected]
Sure I just emailed them to you 😀
Can you please send me the stencil for the letters? I am unable to get them from this site.
Hi Penny, Just e-mailed them to you. Happy crafting! 😀
I did not receive the email from you with the letters
Just send out the e-mail. 😀 Let me know if you’ve received them?
This is such a cool idea! Can you please email me the stencils for the letters? [email protected]
Can you please email me the stencils for the letters? [email protected]
Sure I just e-mailed them to you. Happy Crafting 😀
Can you email me the letters please
Sure 😀
I was looking forward to doing this craft. unfortunately I have not received any letters in my email. .
Hi Penny, I just emailed you the letters . 😀 Happy Crafting 😀
Could i use a hot glue gun to glue down the mini clothes pins. Would it stick to the wood or should i use the glue you used. An i also stained the wood so im not sure how the bond between the varnish an glue would adhere.
You can use hot glue however if you’re planning on shipping it I would probably stick to the glue I used. I don’t think you should have a problem with the wood being stained. It settles in pretty well after about 24 hours and leaves no oily residue if done correctly so the hot glue should stick right on. My wood was stained as well. Didn’t seem to cause any problems. 😀 😀 Hope this helps. 😀
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Thank you. I’m so glad to hear you liked it 😀 😀
I love this idea! I signed up for the mailing list but didn’t see a link to download the letters. Can you please email them to me? Thank you so much!
Oh man that’s sucks. sorry to hear that. I just e-mailed them to you. 😀 LEt me know how it goes?
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This really answered my problem, thank you!
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Thank you. For collaborations contact me via the contact form.
Hi just wanted to give you a brief heads up and let you know a few of the images aren’t loading properly. I’m not sure why but I think its a linking issue. I’ve tried it in two different web browsers and both show the same results.
Oh wow thank you. I’ll look into it.
Can you please email me the letters i am having a hard time finding them. My moms birthday is tuesday and i would like to make this.
Sure. 😀
Can you please email me the letters. I want to make this for my moms birthday this week.
You should have the letters I just emailed them to you 😀 😀 Happy crafting.
Can you please email me the letters? I love this idea but want to make the word family.
Sure I’ll send them right over 🙂
Hey! I love this idea! May you send me the stencils for the letters to me please? [email protected]
Sure I’ll send them right over. 🙂
please can you send me the letters
Sure I just did 🙂 Happy crafting 😀
Hey! I have a questions that I need an answer to ASAP! Where did u get your wood????? I ordered a piece of wood from your amazon link and it is not the same size. Where did u get yours?? Thanks!
Hi Nina, I’m so sorry to hear that. Yes they have different sizes on amazon. I had wood left from a previous project. But originally I think I got it at homedepot years ago.
Can you please email the printable to me?
Sure 😀
can you email the letters to me please
Sure I just sent them 🙂
Absolutely love. I started my board Now I am trying to download the letters to print. Could you please email them to me. Thank you so much!
Good evening. Could you please email me the M and heart?
Sure thing. Just did 🙂
Thank you so much!
Sure 🙂 no prob
Hello! I love this idea! It looks amazing! Could you email the M and the heart to me please?
I think this is the perfect gift for my mom for Christmas! Thank you.
Thank you Delaney I am so glad to hear you love this idea.
I love this! I am going to make it for my mom. Can you email me the letters and heart please?
Awe thank you Kaley I’m so glad you loved it. I just emailed you the letters 😀 Happy Crafting 😀
Hey! I was wondering if you could email me the m and heart?! Thank you!
Sure Holly I just did. Happy Crafting and Happy Holidays. 😀
My Goddaughter is going to make this for her mom. I am having a difficult time finding the M and heart. Could you please email the M and heart to me? Thank you!
AWWe how cute! Sure I just emailed them to you. Sorry about that.
Can you please email me the stencil list? I will be doing last names for my parents and future in-laws. Thank you, your design is beautiful!!
Sure I just emailed you the letters 😀 Happy Crafting. Your very welcome 😀
Thank you so much for featuring this DIY on your blog ! 😀 😀
Thank you for the feature 😀
Awe thank you so much for the feature what an honor! 😀
Awe thank you so much for the feature. I really appreciate it!