Maestra to Mama: DIY Nursery Art

Since finding out we are pregnant (and even before), I have been pinning pictures on Pinterest about her nursery. Here is my Nursery Pinterest Board. As you can see, we like the gray over here :) I have spent a lot of time thinking about someone's room who will not even appreciate it, but I'll have to spend a lot of time in there, so I want it to be pretty.

We have always wanted to do a neutral nursery. We settled on gray very early on because when the little lady gets a little sibling, we won't have to repaint. Andrew really likes the navy and yellow combo (also good for a little boy if she gets a little brother someday). There are tons of great paintings on Etsy and even super cute subway art, but I just looked at them and thought, "I can totally do that!" So I did. And spent under $30 for 5 great pieces for the little lady's new room.

In true form, I started each project forgetting to take step by step pictures. Just like when Andrew and I go out to dinner somewhere and I want to take a picture of the meal (every meal on our Disney World trip) and I start eating it then half way through remember, OOPS!

I started off by going to JoAnn's and getting some acrylic paint in the colors of her room, some round foam brushes, and three 12x12in canvases (50% off!!). In total, I spent about $17 on this little art project and it only took me a couple hours to complete.

The first one is two dot canvases. It was seriously the easiest painting I have ever done and finished in about an hour (which is amazing for me since it will usually take me up to a week to finish a painting).

I began by painting a few navy blue dots in different sizes over the canvas (I did not prep the canvas prior, meaning I didn't paint it white). I also did a little swirl action with the dots as I went so they would be more circular.

I waited a few minutes in between and then started with a dark gray doing the same swirling motion with few dots. Then the same with a lighter gray. And this is where I remembered to take a picture. :)

And remember, less is more. I tried to keep this mantra in my head as I went because I tend to overdo it. You can always add more but you can't take away.

After the grays dried for a few minutes, I moved on to yellow. I mixed the yellow with a little white as I went to get different shades. Once I finished with the yellow, it just didn't look right to me, so I added a few white dots over top and am thrilled with what I got!

Project #2: variation on the dot pieces

This still used dots, but made them into flowers. Of course, all of my paint brushes are at my parents' house or who knows where, so I had to make do with a foam brush and toothpicks. I thought that this one would be just as easy, but painting stems with toothpicks is super time consuming!

I started by prepping the canvas with yellow. I wanted it to be gradient, so I started with just yellow on the bottom and continued to add white as I went.

And this is what I got!

Next I started with navy dots in three sizes and continued to add dark gray, light gray, and white. This was unlike the first paintings I did when I could put dots every where and overlap. I had to think about what it would look like as flowers.
LESS IS MORE

Then came time to add those stems. This was the most time consuming part. I'm not sure if it would have been any easier with brushes because I wanted the lines very thin, but it did take a little extra time.

Finally, I wanted to do some subway art which is very trendy right now.
When we started dating in high school, Andrew gave me the lyrics to "Your Song" by Elton John in a card. Since then, it has always been our song. It was our first dance at our weeding. The song means so much to us and the chorus perfectly sums up how we feel about our little girl.

I found a DIY tutorial online from The Ginger Penny Pincher on how to create your own subway art. In concept, it's pretty easy, but you need the time to sit down and do it. It took me a couple of hours to do the two prints, but it was worth it.

I used PicMonkey to create both. It's a free photo editing site which I love. I also used it to great the banner at the top of the blog!
I then sent the prints over to Staples Copy Center to print them out. And for a total of $2, I had some awesome prints!

(If you would like to create your own subway art, follow The Ginger Penny Pincher's tutorial because she does a great job of explaining it and why reinvent the wheel?)