Alphabet Art for the Nursery

33 Comments

Posted by Rebecca, June 22nd, 2012

Before Easton was born, I posted about my plans to make some sort of an alphabet print for his room. My original inspiration image hailed from Pinterest…

(from Free Home Decorating Ideas via Pinterest)

My previous post covers how I went from planning this out using paint and canvas, to printing on canvas, to finally just making it a print using Photoshop.

I’ve said this before, but I am no Photoshop expert. In fact, I have no clue of what I’m doing 99% of the time. When I posted about deciding to make the art using Photoshop, I figured Mike would make it because I was lacking the skils. Well, throw in a late baby, a husband who is busy with his own work and me spending hours in bed and guess what? I did it all by myself 🙂

I camped out in bed the last days before Easton came and one of the things I did was whip up a little art on my laptop. I started as just playing around to give Mike an idea of what I wanted, so that he could then do it better. As I played around, I realized I could do it on my own if I just kept tweaking it. It ended up being far easier than I thought!

I started with a rough draft… all I did was type some letters in Photoshop and change the font, color, size and location of each individual letter until I liked the way it looked. I was surprised at how easy this part was since each letter was it’s own layer and I could go back and tweak whichever letter I didn’t like.

My first attempt looked like this…

I liked it for the most part, but there was a lot of dead space. I had to figure out how the letters would look in the frame and make sure there wasn’t too much white space at the top and the bottom of the letters. We had picked up a large Virserum frame from Ikea before even starting this project, so that we were sure that we could size the print properly to fit the inexpensive frame. You may remember seeing the frame hanging around in some pictures…

The frame is 30 ¾” x 41 ½” and the mat opening is about 27 ½” x 19 ½”. I mentioned in my previous post that I saw on Shutterfly that I could order a print as large as 30″ x 20″, which was perfect. I would just have to make sure that my text was centered around the  27 ½” x 19 ½” size of the opening and that I made the image large enough pixel wise to print clearly.

So I set my Photoshop canvas to the size of the print (30″ x 20″) and began to tweak my first draft. A little bit of making fonts bigger, a little bit of overlapping letters and just playing around, then my final product looked like this…

I ordered it and it cost me a whopping $15 to print through Shutterfly. It was supposed to take over a week to come, but it ended up arriving in a few days and coming the day before Easton was born. If you remember from my birth story, I was already in labor at this point so Mike ran it upstairs to show me how great it printed. He put it in the frame just so I could see how it looked, but I didn’t snap a picture of it.

The large canvas size I chose worked because the letters were not at all blurry.

We planned to put it on the wall in between the giraffe sconces.

Since the sconces are white, the dresser is white, the frame is white and the mat is white, I thought it was too much white. It would look nice and clean, but I was just looking for a little more fun and contrast on this wall. So I decided to spray paint the mat navy blue.

I picked up this can of paint while I was in labor. I figured walking around Lowe’s would help, though I was in such pain that I could hardly walk and I had to stop and sit on a pile of wood. Whoops.

Finally this week, I decided to take the hour I had in between feeding, burping and cuddling to run outside and spray the mat. Hello backyard, I haven’t seen you in a while.

I just laid the mat on the grass because Mike was due to cut it anyway. The blue will be gone with one pass of the John Deere 🙂

It took several coats to make sure there were no white spots. My hand started cramping since the Valspar trigger was really hard to push down, so Mike took over.

Once we were done, the grass looked like this (which was actually really cool looking)…

But the mat looked like this!

Fast forward a few days after it completely dried and I had another baby nap to put the mat in the actual frame. Sidenote: Mike’s been spending most of his spare time working on the built-ins in the new office that we abandoned to work on the nursery. So I’m usually on baby duty and can’t work on projects, but I can’t complain because the built-ins are looking awesome 🙂

First I wanted to make sure the blues looked good together. The lid of the spray paint can looked more bluish than navy, but it was the most navy one I could find. Thankfully, it dried much darker!

I put it in the frame and I was surprised that he “glass” in the frame is plastic. No wonder why Ikea can sell such a large frame, with a mat for just $29.99!

We couldn’t find the hardware that came with the frame, so I just leaned it up against the wall to see how it would look.

And I love it. I’m shocked at how well the colors match the color scheme of the room. I really just tried to incorporate the blues of the bedding/curtains/ceiling, the greens of the bedding/closet/bookcase and the gray of the walls. This artwork was meant to be the glue that brought everything together, and I think it does.

The plastic “glass” of the frame made for some awful glare, so it was hard to capture pictures. I may actually just remove it when we mount the frame, at least to take better pictures for you guys 🙂

Though the glare does allow you to see the other elements in the room with the art, like how you can see the chevron curtains hanging out in this picture…

One more picture from the other side of the room!

Not to shabby for $15 for a DIY print + $29.99 for a large frame and mat. Oh and a couple of bucks for spray paint!

Since this post took me 3 sessions to write, Mike is actually at Lowe’s at the moment picking up some stuff for the office and some hardware to hang this bad boy. Hopefully this weekend we can both have time, at the same time, to hang it since it’s a two person job. Then we’re one step closer to actually being ready to give you a full nursery reveal and tour. I’m so excited 🙂

Update! Since I just completed this and I didn’t have time to tackle a new project, I decided to use this as project as my summer Pinterest Challenge entry, hosted by Young House Love, Bower Power, Centsational Girl and Ten June, all of which are some of my favorite blogs. 3 out of 4 of my Pinterest Challenge projects have been some form of wall art, guess you can tell what I like to do for fun…

Oh and we did get around to hanging this print on the wall, which I posted about here.

Tada! 🙂

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33 Responses to “Alphabet Art for the Nursery”

  1. Lindz says:

    Easton has one of the cutest nurseries I’ve ever seen! You guys did an amazing job!

  2. So cute! I love it! And it looks so good in there.

  3. The artwork looks really nice. It looks like you bought it!

  4. That is feat in itself that you got it done with the baby here! I love how you spray painted on the grass. I do the same thing, my husband gets so mad at me, but hey the grass grows and in a week it will be cut off right? Love the art work and how the room is coming together.

  5. I like that a lot. Very cool!

  6. Courtney says:

    Any chance you would share your alphabet file? It’s so cute!! And I am not good with photoshop 😛

  7. […] en el cuadro que ha hecho Rebecca para la habitación de su […]

  8. Jessica says:

    I would love the alphabet file as well if you are sharing 🙂

    Thanks!

  9. Kerry says:

    I love this!!!! I would love the alphabet file too if you don’t mind sharing!!!

  10. Catie says:

    This is SO cute! I love the idea!! Looks great 🙂

  11. Andrea says:

    This is so pretty. I think I’ll do an alphabet print for my next nursery, whenever that happens.

  12. Jenny says:

    This looks awesome!!

    Another request for the file, if you’re willing to share/sell access to it! This would look awesome with the colors in my 3 year-old’s room, and it needs art badly. I’d be happy to Paypal you some cash and work out how you can shutterfly me the printed print…

    You did such a lovely job with this!!

  13. kerri says:

    That is so adorable. Excellent eye!

  14. Becky says:

    Awesome job! I have been wondering if I shuld paint the ikea mats WHITE instead of the creamy clor they are. I wondered if spray paint would do the trick….looks like it! Lovin your blog!

  15. Stopped by here from the YHL Pinterest challenge. LOVE this and need to do a version in our little guy’s room! We have the same Hemnes dresser (it’s the PERFECT dresser/changing table) and also a Dwell Studio changing pad cover… good taste 😉

  16. That looks great! I think the navy mat really makes it pop! I’ve been contemplating doing something similar for our nursery-in-progress.

  17. This looks so good! I love the colors and how they match the fabric on the changing table.

  18. Tamsyn says:

    I love this so much! In fact I love everything about the nursery!

    I have another baby on the way and I have been having trouble deciding on the colors for his nursery… I think I have my answer now. Thank you for the inspiration!

  19. Sarah says:

    Just hopped over here from TenJune. I LOVE the art and the colors in your nursery! The giraffe sconces are to die for. I’m seriously considering if I’m to old to have them in my room!

  20. Gretchen says:

    What a cute print! You did a great job. I love how the nursery is coming together.

  21. Kerry says:

    I love your ABC print for your sons room, and have been looking to do this ABC are work for my son. I was wondering if you could send me the file for this. I am using the same exact colors in my nursery and this would be perfect. Thank you so much for your time and sharing your amazing ideas on your website.

    Kerry

  22. Christi says:

    I love your work! This is going to be the color’s of my son’s room as well and I would love the ABC file if you are willing to share. You did a great job! Thank you!

  23. Claire says:

    SO cute! I would love to get this print if you are willing to sell/share.

    slp.logsdon@gmail.com

  24. Becky says:

    What version of photoshop did you purchase? This is adorable!

  25. Kate says:

    Do you have the link to the Ikea frame that you used? I’m having a hard time finding it online. Thanks!

  26. Luciana says:

    I love your design! I have searched the web for a long time until I found your blog. you did an amazing job! Since I am not that handy with Photoshop and my brother is super busy to help, can you please share the file?
    Thanks!

  27. Luciana says:

    this is the frame i found at ikea.ca ( i live in Canada):http://www.ikea.com/ca/en/catalog/products/60174785/#/40174767

  28. Emily says:

    I absolutely LOVE this! I have been looking for something just like this and you have inspired me to create my own… thank you! I downloaded Photoshop Elements and it’s not hard to figure out at all. I do have a couple of questions, if you’d be willing to answer them. 1. Did you print on canvas or do a regular print? 2. What pixel dimensions/image size/resolution did you put into Photoshop? The print came out so crisp! I appreciate your blog!

    • Rebecca says:

      Hi Emily!

      I did a regular print on the largest photo paper available on Shutterfly. I set my image dimensions to the exact size of that paper in inches so that the resolution was super high. It printed extremely crisp and I was relieved it worked 🙂

  29. Stacey says:

    We bought the inspiration print for our daughter’s room last year and framed it in the same IKEA frame. I like your print BETTER! Great job. I would love a copy if you are sharing. I don’t have photoshop . . . have never used it.

  30. Kat says:

    Love this! Are you willing to email the file if you still have it? I’m not sure I am as creative as you, or have the ability to manipulate photoshop!

  31. fetish says:

    Hi, everything is going well here and ofcourse every one is sharing information, that’s truly good,
    keep up writing.
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