Project: DIY Nursery Letters

When I was a kid, I was always super disappointed whenever I perused personalized souvenirs. You know the ones; keychains, license plates, and shotglasses that come already emblazoned with common names. I could never find my name.

So now, I love the chance to personalize anything I can. That's carrying over to purchases for my son, too. So even though nursery letters are becoming pretty cliched, I still wanted to make some. In fact, since his first name is so short, I decided to plow forward into his middle moniker as well.

They're pretty straightforward, so I'm not going to insult your intelligence with a tutorial. I wanted the "cobbled together and collected from various sources" look, so they intentionally have different fonts and paint designs.

UPDATE: I've had lots of people landing here looking for ideas to DIY their own, so even though I didn't photograph a tutorial, here's a list of what I did (see below the new picture for a list of tools and materials):

1. Shopped at local craft and hobby stores (and one big box chain!) for mismatched letters.
2. Sketched out the letters on paper (see the new picture below), and drew designs on the letters so that I wouldn't have the same patterns too near each other.
3. Came up with a color scheme, and just like the patterns, sketched it on paper so I wouldn't have too much of the same color too near each other.
4. Lightly sanded the letter with a fine-grit sandpaper. I was mostly looking to smooth out the manufacturing imperfections.
5. I considered priming them, but didn't! I got right to painting the base coat on each letter. Some took more than one to get the base as dark as I wanted it.
6. Once they'd dried, either free-handed the next design layer, or started applying painter's tape. (TIP: paint the base coat over the painter's tape before changing colors. This'll keep the second color from seeping under the tape).
7. Finished each one off with a layer of clear spraypaint! DUNZO.

DIY Nursery Letters
Acrylic craft paint on wood
Letters: From Richard's and WalMart, $1.99 - $2.49 each, approximately $18 total
Paints: On sale for 50 cents each at JoAnn (Purchased in Navy, Cobalt, Orange, White, Black, Yellow, Red, then mixed)
Foam brushes: $1.99 at JoAnn
Crackle medium: $2.49 (Used on letters "T" and "L")
Clear spray paint finish: About $3.69 at WalMart, KRYLON in Satin
Total project cost: Approximately $29

Things I Fancy: the Pajanimals' Swan Rug

In case you can't tell from my previous Berenstain Bears and Barney the Dinosaur "Things I Fancy" posts, I watch a lot of Sprout.

And in case you can't tell from my Pinterest, I love anything Jim Henson and the Muppets.

So of course I love the Pajanimals, their sweet lullabys, and especially their bedroom. And what always stood out most to me in their room is this round swan rug, which you can see in these stills I grabbed from their "La-La-Lullaby" video:

 Very Anthropologie! I can't seem to find a similar one online, not even at Anthro.

As of this fall, the Pajanimals have gone from singing lullabys in music-video type vignets on Sprout, to starring in their very own series. Good news for Pajanimals fans, but... the set has since been changed. And the swan rug is gone. But some good changes have also been welcomed into the Pajanimals bedroom. I'm going to be talking about those, too, once I get used to the all-new Pajanimals!

Boy's room ideas: Robots in Space

I guess I should start by saying I'm not so into the super matchy-matchy bedroom-in-a-bag, everything's-put-together-for-you way to decorate a baby's room (although Overstock has some cute ones I did consider). But that doesn't mean I can't have a little fun; it IS a kid's room after all.

So... I like "Robots in Space". Which actually sounds pretty corny now that I'm typing it out, but I've had it in my head for a while. Too bad for me then that this room on Apartment Therapy's Odeedoh wrecked that for me. How will the room I make for my baby ever be complete with this:

Check out the badassical GIANT robo-man! ACK! <robot voice>AWESOME OVERLOAD</robot voice>

Lucky for me, I was planning on going with a slight variation of the strictly-robots theme. I'm thinking more of an Atomic Age/Jetsons/Lost in Space feel, but not overpoweringly so. In fact, the theme may only show up in the form of a rug (especially now that the thrift store already sold the robot fabric I was planning in using for curtains).

So here, a potential rug roundup:

Ranging from $50 -$75, this "Roule Olive Kids Collection Go Robots" one from Amazon.com seems like an economical choice. I also found it on BabiesRUs.com.

Also from Amazon, this "Momeni" retro robot rug is a little pricier, from about $170 on up.

These two from Amazon are priced at $219 each and the dimensions are not listed.

We could also always go with a space-themed rug, and there are LOTS of those out there, including on Amazon, at Home Depot, on Overstock, and on BabiesRUs.com

Which one do you like? Are there any others you'd like to let me know about?