DIY Nursery Art

When I originally decorated our nursery (three years ago!), I intended for these three frames to hold really pretty shots of our little baby. The nursery was ready to go before Ben arrived, so I needed something to fill the frames until we could have our fabulous photos printed.

My mom happened to be in town with her Cricut so we got our craft on, cutting out the letters A-B-C, adhering them to navy card stock and framing them.

I liked how they looked so much that I never replaced them with photos. Fast forward a couple years and I was back in the nursery, sprucing it up for Owen's arrival.

I originally cut the "A" and "C" in orange paper but I was moving all of the orange accessories to Ben's big boy room down the hall and replacing them in the nursery with grey accents. So I used my Silhouette (a Christmas present this year) to cut an "A" and a "C" in grey paper, instantly updating the room.

This wall is what you're facing when you enter the room. I still love how it all looks! You can see the remainder of the orange in the pinwheel mobile. That's another DIY project altogether.

Here's how you can duplicate this little DIY project:

Materials + Supplies

- three pieces of 12x12 card stock in a solid color 

- three pieces of 12x12 scrapbook paper in contrasting color(s) - I like the look of a print on the solid 

- three picture frames that accommodate a square photo (I used THESE from Ikea)

- two-sided tape or adhesive (I use THIS one)

- Silhouette, Cricut or other cutting machine

I cut the letters from the printed papers to a size that fit comfortable within the matted area. This took a couple rounds of trial and error since it was the first time I used the Silhouette. But it was easy to cut with plain white paper first to make sure I had the size I wanted.

Once I cut the patterned paper, I adhered it to the navy blue card stock. Then it was just a matter of framing the card stock and hanging the frames. Voila!

I love how the lighter patterned papers look on the dark navy card stock. Three years later and I'm still loving the look - even more so now that I've swapped the orange paper for grey.

And since it's his room and he was hanging out with me while I photographed it, I couldn't resist a couple of gratuitous baby pics. Here's little Owen in his nursery showing us his two favorite expressions: very happy and very serious. I promise he really likes his room and his Mom's attempts to DIY it.