Fall Pumpkin String Art

Adult Craft

Fall Pumpkin String Art

⏱ An afternoon 💰 Under $20 🔨 Skill level: Intermediate

Finished pumpkin string art in white and orange thread on a stained wood plank board

Pin it

The idea

A simple pumpkin shape, built entirely out of nails and thread on a stained wood plank board. It's a slower, more meditative kind of craft than most of what we make — no cutting, no gluing, just a lot of winding thread back and forth until the shape fills in solid.

Materials

A stained wood plank board (ours was pre-assembled from 4 planks)
Small nails, for outlining the shape (we used 5/8" panel nails)
A hammer
White crochet thread (we used Aunt Lydia's Fashion 3), for the pumpkin body
Orange embroidery floss, for the stem
A paper pumpkin template, for tracing
A pen, for tracing the template onto the wood

Stained wood plank board, crochet thread, embroidery floss, nails, a hammer, and a pen laid out on a workbench

What we did

We started with a paper pumpkin template, tracing around it directly onto the stained wood so we'd know exactly where the nails needed to go.

Paper pumpkin template traced onto a stained wood plank board

Following the traced outline, we hammered nails in one at a time, spacing them evenly around the whole pumpkin shape, including a smaller cluster for the stem.

Nails hammered around the outline of a pumpkin shape on stained wood

We strung the stem first, in orange embroidery floss, wrapping it randomly back and forth between the stem's nails until the shape filled in solid rather than looking like a simple outline.

Stem of the pumpkin strung solid in orange embroidery floss while the body outline is still just nails

The body came next, using the same technique with white crochet thread instead — winding it across the shape in every direction, not just around the edges, until the whole pumpkin looked woven rather than outlined. A jute loop on the back nail finished it off for hanging.

Finished pumpkin string art with a jute twine hanging loop attached

What we learned: Random-looking is actually the goal here — going nail to nail in a repeating pattern leaves visible gaps, but crossing the thread at different angles each pass fills the shape in evenly and gives it that solid, woven look.

Result

A simple two-color pumpkin that looks a lot more intricate than it actually is to make — the whole thing is just nails and thread, no paint or carving required.