Today’s Hint: Easy DIY Nursery & Playroom Wall Art

I spent a lot of time trying to find the perfect wall décor for my daughter’s nursery.

After settling on cute decals for one wall, pretty hanging letters for another, and old Winnie the Pooh calendar images for the third, I still needed a piece of art – hopefully large, with bright colors and even somewhat educational — to grace the fourth wall.

While I was searching for the perfect poster online and lamenting about this first-world problem to my mom, she suggested an easy DIY nursery wall art idea that is today’s hint: Staple cute, bright fabric to a frame made out of wood fabric stretcher bars and voilà, you have instant wall art for a nursery, kid’s bedroom or playroom.

My mom did this back in 1983 when she wanted colorful images to decorate the walls of our drab, unfinished basement playroom. She bought three cute Marimekko fabrics featuring rainbows, bubble gum machines and houses as well as large fabric stretcher bars. Then, using a staple gun, she stretched and attached the fabric to the bars, creating the three pieces of basement wall art I grew up with.

The fabric wall art I created for my daughter’s nursery.

These DIY decorations held up very well, so well, in fact, that thirty years later, I was able to reuse one set of the bars to create wall art for my daughter’s nursery. I bought a cute, brightly colored Marimekko floral fabric (see the image to the right), and my mom and I ironed it and then stapled it to the old bar set, creating easy DIY wall art that hopefully will last another thirty years.

I’m not the only fan of using Marimekko –and Marimekko-like – fabric to decorate nursery walls. Over at Project Nursery, artist Sam Simon writes about how “one of the most wonderful elements of Marimekko is the fact that you can march right in and purchase their fabrics by the yard and apply them to” anything you like, including “curtains, wall art, pillow covers or anything else you can dream up.” In fact, in a separate Project Nursery post, he gives a really helpful how-to for creating this type of DIY fabric art.

Meanwhile, the Marimekko Blog features a nursery with a Marimekko wall hanging, nursery wall art also covered over at Apartment Therapy.

To be sure, Marimekko fabrics aren’t cheap. But they are cute – and they last, as testified by the wall art in my parents’ basement. You also don’t necessarily need Marimekko fabric to implement this hint. It can be done with any easily stapled fabric, ranging from cute old sheets to spare fabric you have around the house.

Over at their blog, the Newly Woodwards, for instance, share how they used excess fabric they had to create wall hangings for their son’s nursery (they wrapped the fabric around actual canvases rather than just around wood frames like my mom and I did), and their work inspired this similar nursery wall art by blogger Domestic Superhero.

Elsewhere, Courtney over at Sweet C’s Designs shares how she transformed some fabric squares into nursery wall art, and blogger Aedriel provides some more inspiration for turning excess fabric into DIY nursery wall decorations. Still looking for some more nursery décor inspiration? Faith Towers covers a number of ideas for easy nursery art over at Curbly.

Meanwhile, I’m very pleased with my DIY wall art, even if it hangs a bit crooked, and I plan to use the other fabric stretchers from my parents’ house – and maybe even the old Marimekko fabric – to create more wall hangings for my daughter’s room and play nook.

What are your tips for decorating nursery, playroom and kids’ bedroom walls?

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