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DIY Nursery Letters

I love the idea of personalizing my babies room by putting their name on the wall! After ALL of the effort that goes into picking the name it should be on display as a reward for the hours of googling and bargaining that took place! 🙂

These DIY Nursery Letters are easy and inexpensive to make. Making your own nursery letters is half the price of ordering custom letters or buying them at the store. The other great thing about these DIY Nursery Letters is you can customize them to match your child’s room and your decorating style.

The most fun part is picking out the scrapbook paper for the DIY Nursery Letters! I like mixing and matching the prints and colors. I’ve bought A  LOT of scrapbook paper over the years (I love to scrapbook!) and the best selection of scrapbook paper is at Hobby Lobby. Trust me, I’ve shopped for scrapbook paper at all the places and Hobby Lobby wins every time!

The Paper Mache Letters are pretty common and can be found at any of the major craft stores. I buy the 8″ letters which are typically $2.99 each. Michael’s and JoAnn Fabric always have coupons so no need to pay full price! Both retailers have a coupon page that you should check before making any purchases. See current Michael’s coupons HERE and JoAnn Fabric coupons HERE. The scrapbook paper ranges from $0.50-$1.50 based on the type you buy. I bought my x-acto knife a while ago and I have mod podge, craft paint, and foam brushes in my craft supplies. The cost of each DIY Nursery Letter ranges from $3.50-$5.00 depending on the paper you choose and coupons. Purchasing these on Etsy will cost double that.

FIY – this project will work with the regular scrapbook paper and the the thick sparkly specialty paper.

Supplies Needed:

  • Scrapbook Paper
  • Paper Mache Letters
  • Craft Paint
  • (2) Foam Brushes
  • X-Acto Knife
  • Mod Podge

Step 1: Lay the letter on top of the paper and trace the paper mache letter with the x-acto knife. Make sure your x-acto knife is sharp. This will lead to a much easier, quicker, and cleaner cut. Repeat this step for each letter.

Step 2: Lay the paper letters on top of the paper mache letters to clean up the edges. When I cut out the letters by tracing the paper mache letters with the x-acto knife it is never perfect. I then use my x-acto knife and scissors to make sure it is going to fit well on the letters. Look for parts that hang over too far, need to be straightened, or cleaned up.

Step 3: Set aside the paper letters and get ready to paint the paper mache letters. Foam brushes work the best for applying the paint. Paint brushes tend to be streaky. The letters will absorb the paint so I recommend two coats, sometimes three coats, to get nice even coverage. Paint into the middle of the letters to ensure no bare spots will show when you mod podge the paper cut outs to the letters.

Step 4: To attach the paper to the letters you are going to use the mod podge. Get a clean foam brush out and use it to mod podge the letters and then quickly attach the paper letters. Once the paper letters are on then mod podge on top of the paper too. This will seal it and give a glossy finish.

 

These DIY Nursery Letters are light weight and therefore safe to hang over the babies crib. I use command strips to attach these to the wall which is simple and effective.

I loved doing these letters for baby Quinn! You can’t see it in the picture but almost every letter is sparkly. Maybe one day I’ll get to make pink sparkly letters for my house. 🙂

Here are some pictures of other DIY Nursery Letters I’ve made!

Our Home

Painted Mason Jars

We made (Pinterest-inspired) painted mason jar centerpieces for my sister-in-law’s baby shower. These painted mason jars are easy to make and look so good. I am obsessed and continued spray painting all the glass items I had in my house. It was mid-February and the temperature was like 65 degrees so thankfully we were able to do them outside.


These are great for shower centerpieces or home decor. After seeing how great they looked, I ended up making some for around my house. Here are the step by step instructions!

Step 1: Start with any clear glass item.

Step 2: Spray paint your base color. Take your time spray painting. It is best to do several light coats otherwise it will be runny and uneven. Patience! Speaking from experience, be aware of the direction the wind is blowing.

Step 3: Put painters tape on the dry jar to protect the areas you want to keep white. Be sure to run your fingers around all the edges of the tape and press it down to avoid paint running under the tape. Putting the tape on straight can be challenging. It helps if you are working with a jar that has markings to use as a guide. When we did the centerpieces the jars had markings and when I did it myself I used a plain jar. It was much more challenging to get straight lines with the plain glass jar.

Step 4: Spray paint the opposite color. Go easy with the spray paint, put it on light, and move slowly. This is the most delicate part of the project because you don’t want the black paint to run down behind the tape onto the white. Now wait for the black paint to dry.

Step 5: Spray paint all the items you own with this awesome gold color until nap time is over!

Step 6: Gently remove the painters tape and you are done! Looks awesome, right?!

Let me know if you try this painted mason jar project. I want to see how yours come out and your end use for them!

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DIY – Entryway Coat Hanger & Shelf

Our entryway and living room are getting a makeover! Our front door opens up into our formal living room. I am working on creating a ‘hallway’ to make the entrance way more functional and set apart the living room to be more cozy and comfortable. Stay tuned for the full transformation! Today I am sharing one of the first major pieces of this project.

I have wanted a cute entryway coat hanger & shelf for a long time. Even though we have a hall closet all of our stuff ends up right inside the door on the couch or on the floor. This project is practical but also I love the look of them. I searched for them at various stores and on Etsy and they were super expensive. I decided to try to tackle this project on my own!

I found step by step instructions on Pinterest here. I left the kids with my mom and headed to Lowes. I found the lumber I needed but had no idea how I was supposed to walk around the store and get my other items with a couple of 8 foot pieces of lumber in my arms. I spotted these carts that looked like they were made for this and later realized I had my lumber on the cart incorrectly. It didn’t take long for me to realize I was in over my head on this one!

I did my best to continue finding my supplies. As I wondered around Lowes lost and confused an older man asked, “Do you have any idea what you are doing?”. I smiled and he said, “Watching too much t.v., huh?”…so I guess it was obvious I had no idea what I was doing but I was determined to make this happen!

I took my supplies back to my parents house and ran it all past my dad. I had a few things wrong so we went back out together and got the proper items. At that point, I had my dad interested and thank goodness he was because this project was beyond my carpentry skills. If you read the comments below the instruction page you can see most people had trouble making the cuts on the crown molding. Thankfully my dad was able to do this for me.

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We ended up choosing crown molding with a more unique design than what’s shown in the instructions. It dressed it up a bit and gave it a more formal look.

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This is a big heavy piece so make sure you have a plan for where and how to hang it before you go to the trouble to make it. You need to hit studs and you want to do so behind the hooks. Figuring this out was like a SAT math problem…thankfully my husband is good at math. We were able to hit two studs on the first and fifth hook.

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I LOVE the way this turned out! It cost about $80 to make…much cheaper than the ones I saw for sell for hundreds of dollars. BONUS: it’s another place in the house to display pictures!

I’ll post more about the entryway and living room makeover as we finish it. We are picking up a new couch tomorrow! For a sneak peak check out my pinterest board.