Today’s Hint: DIY Budget-Friendly Nursery Wall Letters

I’m embarrassed to admit how much time I spent looking for the perfect letters to spell out my daughter’s name on her nursery wall. And even more embarrassing: how much I spent on the letters I ultimately bought (see the image above). I paid at least $12 per letter.

If only I had known about a clever technique for creating cute budget-friendly wall letters that I’ve since learned from some of my crafty friends, a DIY strategy that is today’s hint.

My friends’ DIY nursery wall alphabet.

Here’s how my friends (the same clever ones who constructed a crib “pacifier bar”) made the wall letters in their daughter’s nursery. They bought brightly colored paper from an office supply store. Then they made each letter they wanted on the computer, using a super large font size and a thick border around each letter.

The next step: They printed each letter on a sheet of colored paper, cut the letters out with scissors and then stuck them to the wall with masking tape. Voilà, they had brightly colored wall letters, and they spent only about $2 and four hours on the project. See their finished product in the image to the left.

To be sure, my friends admit that their letters “are fragile and can rip easily.”

However, it’s possible to make more durable letters with this technique. Instead of using basic colored paper, you could buy a thicker paper or cardstock and print the letters out on that, assuming your printer can handle such paper, an approach my friend recommends “over the way we did it.”

You also could pay extra to get the letters laminated at a store like FedEx Office, making the letters even more durable. Or if you want wooden letters, you can buy basic wooden letters at a store like Michaels, Home Depot or Craft Cuts, and then decorate the letters yourself with scrapbooking paper or paint. See this helpful tutorial from the blog popcorn and pandas, as well as this helpful one from the blog My So-Called (Mommy) Life.

Meanwhile, if you’re really crafty and have time on your hands, you can get pretty fancy with your DIY wall letters. Sam Simon, an artist in New York, for instance, shares how to make studded wall letters over at Project Nursery (you’ll need Styrofoam, paint and other supplies).

Finally, you could cut letter costs by holding off on getting all the letters at once. Instead, you could collect them over time, a “collect the alphabet” idea I love from the ladies over at Rookie Moms.

What are your strategies for cute – and cheap – wall letters?

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