DIY Baby Nursery Letters

Nursery letters and wall letters are quite a popular decoration for the baby nursery and children's bedrooms. Many of the stores and websites that carry these letters post a hefty price tag to go along with them. When you're dealing with spelling out an entire name, well, you're in for a little dent in your wallet. I've managed to make these for my daughter's room and the new baby nursery, and still keep my bank account in tact.

Here's how:

Pre-cut Wooden Letters

OK, so it's not exactly "make your own nursery letters" but it's still really fun, and DIY. Not to mention cheap and easy! You can buy these letters at many arts and crafts supply stores for about $1.50 a piece. Beware I have seen them online for almost $5.00 a pop, and you can definitely get them cheaper than that. The only way you should be spending that much is if they happen to be cut in some sort of fancy font or shape, but I can show you how to get that style for cheap too.

These wooden letters are great! You can paint them yourself and keep them just plain to keep in the baby nursery. Paint them a color to match your nursery theme or color scheme. You can also hand paint cute little patterns or pictures on them. Add ribbon to these to hang them on the wall for nursery wall letters.

wooden letters diy nursery letters

What I did? I went the easy route and used some great 3d scrapbooking stickers to embellish my letters. I decided to go with "Teddy Bear Picnic" as my nursery theme, so I used some cute teddy bear stickers. I painted the letters with some crafts paint, let it dry, and stuck the stickers on in a way that I thought looked cute.
All in all, it took me about 1/2 an hour to complete. I bought a smaller size wooden letter, so they cost $.99 cents each. The paint cost me exactly $1.00. I bought two colors to mix together to get the perfect shade of blue, and they were each fifty cents. The stickers were on sale for a buck. All together I spent $6.00 for a nursery decoration that would probably cost $15.00 - $20.00 elsewhere. Can't beat that!

Pretty Paper Nursery Letters

I love this project! I wanted some wall letters that would really pop, and really stand out in my daughters room. I also wanted them to be really stylish. She will have the most hip toddler bedroom on the block! :)
I made these letters out of scrapbooking paper. What could be more perfect?! These papers come in so many styles, colors, and patterns it is unbelievable. No matter what your them or color scheme you can definitely come up with some out of this world, cute baby nursery letters.

diy wall letters So what I did was start by using a program called Paint.net. Google it. It's free to download and use. I used the program to make my letters so I could print them onto the back of my scrapbooking paper. I started by creating a letter, then making it a HUGE size so that I got a good 6" letter out of it. I then used the "brightness/contrast" option to make the letter really light so I could conserve ink. It's good to do as printing a lot of these letters can really use up your black ink. One last important step before printing. Choose the "image > flip image" option from the drop down menu to make your letters backwards before printing. This is important. Since you will make your own nursery letters be printing onto the back of the paper, once you cut the letter out and flip it over, it will be in the right orientation. You follow me? I hope so.

So after printing, flip your scrapbook paper over and use an exacto knife or scissors to cut out your letters. I used an exacto knife, but that's because I have been using them for years in the printing industry. Use whatever makes you comfortable.

making wall letters decoration

Next, to create a heavy backing for the letter. I used the scrapbooking paper left over after cutting as a kind of stencil. I traced the shape of the letter onto some cardboard and then cut the shape out to attach to the back of the scrapbook paper letter. Some other things that may work just as well is heavy card stock or even just attach some pipe cleaners to the back.

make your own diy nursery decoration

To finish it up I attached some pretty matching ribbon to use to hold it onto the wall. I simply used some glue to hold the ribbon onto the back, and then tied it in a knot, then a bow.

DIY wall letters scrap a letter scrapbook