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Thursday, April 7, 2011

DIY Wall Art

You know how baby bedding and decor is ridiculously adorable, but ridiculously expensive? And most of the time, there isn't even decor for the set - just bedding and maybe curtains. Well, here's an inexpensive way to create custom wall art for your nursery (or any room, really). If you can trace, cut, and use a glue stick, you can do this!




First, take a picture (or find one on the internet) of whatever you want to recreate. I wanted to make prints that matched the Dwell Studios Space bedding set that we have so I took a picture of one of his receiving blankets in the set. Using a program like MS Paint, cut out the shapes you want and resize them to fit whatever design you're going to make. It doesn't matter if the pictures are a poor resolution - as long as you can see the shapes clearly, its all good. I print mine in black and white to save ink, but you can print them however you want.

Next, cut out the shapes, making them into pieces like this. Since the ship body, fins, tail, and window are all different colors, they need to be cut apart.


Then, trace the pieces of the design on scrapbook paper. A quick note about scrapbook paper - be creative! For this project, I wanted to recreate the rocket ship pattern exactly, so I bought solid colored paper that matched the blanket's design. In similar project, however, I made farm animals using prints like plaid, stripes, and paisley. A white cow with brown paisley spots and a pink polka dot udder, you say? I'll show pictures of that later. Back to the rocket ships.


Once you've got all of your pieces cut out, you can reassemble them and start making your design. I use a combination of glue stick and tape - whatever works! Ta-da! Rocket ship!


Once you've got the main pieces done, its time to get creative. You can take the general design and make it anything you want. This blue rocket ship was a basic part of the pattern, but I wanted to make it the main focus of this one print. Looking to another one of the blankets in the set, I recreated the striped pattern as a background for it. I used the white mat that was already part of the frame to glue everything to. No use letting it go to waste!


Then, put everything together and throw it in a frame! You're done!


These are the other ones I did for this set. The one with multiple little rocket ships was more time consuming than the others, but equally easy. Its all about tracing, cutting, and gluing.



Here are some other prints I did for Charlie's nursery when we were still team green and needed something a little more gender neutral. Same basic principle - I found farm animal images online and gave them the scrapbook paper treatment. The ducks might be my favorite. C'mon! Argyle water and polka dotted duck feet? Too cute.

If you have any questions about this project, please let me know! :-)

3 comments:

  1. Love love love!! Thanks for posting the tutorial :) I'm going to a shower in June and would love to make some pictures as a gift. Thanks!
    Mary Ellen (maryellen21)

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  2. Would you like to be a guest blogger on my blog?

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  3. Super cute- if you'd like to do something similar on our blog (blog.craft-e-corner.com) I'd love to have you as a guest blogger ;)

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