Nursery Wall Art

Our nursery is nearly completed. We have tried to keep it gender neutral as we are adopting. One thing I am especially proud of is my wall art. A few months ago, one of my children’s decor retailers had some wall art that depicted a tree. I went to see this at the store and loved it though I was not fond of the colors (they didn’t go with my room).

In all my craftiness I took a picture of it with my camera phone and came home and attempted to recreated it. The result was a wonderful take on this idea and it is now hanging in the nursery. Here’s how I did it:

Materials you will need (all can be found at your local craft store):

• White Art Canvases (these are surprisingly inexpensive)
• Acrylic Paint (Folk Art or Apple-Color of your choice)
• Scrapbooking Paper (color will depend on your art)
• Modge Podge
• Elmer Craft Glue (works best with paper)
• Paint Brushes

To begin I painted the canvases blue with the acrylic paint. While that was drying I made a leaf pattern ( I used a file folder and just drew one free hand and cut it out) . I then traced the pattern onto the colored scrapbook paper. Then I cut out about 6-8 leaves from each paper.

By then the canvas was dry so I next laid out the canvases the way I wanted them to look on the wall. This particular art piece is one where the tree is made up of several canvases, separated. If you wanted to do this with one large canvas, that would be much easier.

With a pencil I sketched tree lightly. Then I began painting the tree with white acrylic paint. I wanted the tree to be thin as I wanted the focus to be the multi colored leaves.

Once the tree was dry (acrylic paint dries quickly), I began laying my paper leaves on the canvas. I played around with them, alternating where I wanted the leaves to go.

Once I was happy I then glued the paper leaves with the Elmer’s Craft Glue.

After the leaves had dried I used my paint brush and the modge podge to flatten the leaves to the canvas as well as add the fun modge podge sheen.

I was very please with the result!

I have now decided that I can make additional art such as this, depending on the pattern. I am considering making one with just birds. This project was fun and easy. The total prep and work time was less than two hours.

Also the price was surprisingly inexpensive, at the children’s store this piece was selling for over $150. I paid a fraction of that, AND I was able to get the custom colors I wanted!

See more Wall Decorating Tips from Blissfully Domestic.