So for the baby room which sometimes I call 'the nursery' and sometimes not, I'm real excited about getting things up on the wall. I've been perusing Pinterest and a few blogs for DIY art and what they like to call 'free printables.'
I'm a big fan of color, frames, and meaning. And I wanted to be able to use a little meaning in the nursery without having a huge print with the baby's name and date of birth or something. Although if that's your style, that works too... I just figure I'd love to have the art on the wall completed before the baby is born and named and has a birth date.
I had a few ideas.
You may remember this picture from when I made the gallery wall. It was in the running for prints, but never made it to the wall. It's a picture of my mother's mother, my mother's grandmother, and my mother's aunt (left to right) all when they were young enough to do crazy things like water ski. I love the color, I love the swimsuits, I love that it's my family.
And now that we're having the next lady in the family line it only makes since for this picture to hang in her room. So she knows where she came from, and so she knows it's okay to water ski with her mom, and she thinks she needs to wear a one piece swimsuit forever... It just so happens that it's the exact colors I was wanting for the baby room anyways... right?
I got a 14 x 18 inch frame in white from Michael's for $12 while it was 40-50% off. I looked through a lot of frames and this was a cheaper frame, but I just can't see paying $45 for a frame. So we'll see how the final product looks.
I learned a few things when trying to print the picture also. Since it's a square picture originally, I couldn't upload it to print at my local Walmart (only place to print photos in town here...). When I uploaded it, the 'autocrop' took off the sides of the picture. There's wasn't a way to leave the 'white' at the bottom when printing and just cut it off later. But when I called the photo center they let me know I could come in with the picture on a flash drive and they could help me out. I figure this info could be handy if you're trying to print a square picture from Instagram or your phone as well.
The print cost me less than $5 for an 8x10. The original picture is about 4 inches by 4 inches so I knew it'd be a little blurry when I made it that big, but it's an old picture anyway, so it looks nice blurry. Once I cut it, the picture was about 8x8.
I couldn't find a pre-cut mat for the frame that fit a square picture, and I didn't want to pay to have one specially cut. Maybe I'll try that some day, I have no idea how expensive it is. I hear the mat gives a small spacing between the glass and the actual photo, helping the photo to not 'stick to' the glass over the years. I guess I'm taking my chances.
So I used a piece of poster board (small piece, that's all they had at my store) and placed the picture on top of the poster board. This would be a time where I'd use white paper or card stock, but I didn't have any paper as big as the frame. I tried out a few positions: in the middle, a little up, a little down, seeing if it looked fancier one way more than the other. Then I realized I could use the poster board and the mat from the frame and have it look even nicer...
I used a little double stick tape to attach the photo to the poster board and got it all back in the frame. And so here's the finished product. (Note how the colors of the walls in this room are different in every. single. picture. I take...)
I'm waiting to hang it on the wall until I get some more of the art and shelves hung to check the placement... what do ya think? I kind of dream about the day when our little girl can stand up in her crib and point to the 'pretty ladies in the picture' and call them by name and know that they're her family, even though she'll never be able to meet my grandmother or great-grandmother. I would love that.
I've still got a few more ideas for the walls:
I love these free printables from The Handmade Home (a website I just found that I think I'm absolutely in LOVE with!) and I think they'd look great on the wall behind the crib. I've got some white floating shelves my dad built for my room years ago that I stole right off the walls that I think would be great for the printables or even to hold some kid books.
I'm thinking of a few more printed items or watercolor collections by yours truly. But we'll see how artsy I get...
We'll see where all this nesting takes us... or if I get tired too fast to get any of it done, lol.
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