Here we go again… another post about a nursery decorating project. I have really had to restrain myself with the nursery. There are so many cute art projects out there… if I did them all, every square inch of the room would be covered! I knew that I wanted to do a picture frame collage somewhere in the nursery. One of the main reasons: I had a pile of frames sitting around that I “borrowed” from my mom. I love hand-me-down home decor! There’s nothing like breathing new life into something that has served someone else well, but now needs a new home. And that’s how it went with these frames. I wish I took “before” photos, but instead you will have to use your imagination. My mom gave me about a dozen mix-match frames in a variety of metallic colors. Instantly, the spray paint gods began calling out to me. With one coat of primer and one coat of flat white spray paint, I had brand-spanking-new frames just waiting to be filled.

Silhouette Nursery Art

Step One – Gather Your Supplies

assorted frames
computer or tracing paper
pencil, pen, and thin permanent marker
colored scrapbook paper
wrapping paper or paper grocery bag – anything will do
scissors
double-sided tape or glue
masking tape or painters tape
hammer and nails

Step Two – Pick Your Silhouettes

If you have one of those handy-dandy silhouette cutter gadgets, you can skip this step completely. But for those of us that have to go old school on this project, keep reading. Our nursery theme is “forest friends,” but you could use any animal/plant/thing you wish. The key to finding silhouettes lies in the ability to successfully perform a Google image search. You will want to search for silhouettes of whatever animal you want to make. For those of you that are lost, pull up Google now. Type “acorn silhouette” and hit enter. Your first search result will read “images for acorn silhouette.” Click this link. You should then see something like this:

Just scroll through and pick the image that you like the best.

NOTE: remember that you have to trace and cut out these images. Don’t pick anything too intricate… like a hedgehog!

Once you have picked an image that you like, you need to make it the right size. When you click on an image in your Google image search results, you will have a couple of options. One is to visit the website where the image came from. The other is to view the original image. By clicking “view original image,” you can pull up the image alone on the screen to print.

Step Three – Make Your Templates

You have two options here: the reckless way (my way) and the responsible way. The reckless way involves zooming in and out on the computer screen until the image is the right size, placing a piece of tracing paper over the computer screen, very gently tracing over the image with a dull pencil, removing the paper, and tracing over your pencil marks with a permanent marker to make a template. The more responsible method involves printing the image and using a photo copier to shrink/enlarge the image to the right size. The choice is yours. But if you pick my way and end up with an acorn scratched into your monitor, just remember that I warned you!

Repeat steps two and three until you have all of your templates.

Step Four – Transfer Your Templates onto Colored Paper

This is the step where you channel your inner third-grader. I remember learning how to transfer images and outlines in elementary school. The process is simple. First you turn your template over and scribble pencil all over the lines that you want to transfer. Like this:

Then, flip over the paper and trace over your image with a pen. Marker will not work. The pencil on the back of the paper will transfer from your template onto your colored paper (or in my case, onto the back of scrapbook paper).

Step Five – Cut out Shapes and Mount in Frames

Cut out all of your shapes and mount them on card stock or other colored paper. I used double sided tape to prevent air bubbles, but you could use scrapbooking glue if you would like. Place each piece of cardstock into a frame and secure the back.

Step Six – Trace your Frames

Take each frame and trace it onto scrap paper (like a grocery bag or wrapping paper). Label each piece of paper so you know which frame it goes with.

Step Seven – Arrange Frames

I laid out all of my frames on the floor in the nursery so I could arrange and rearrange until I had the perfect layout.

Flip over the frames and placed the paper cut out over each corresponding frame. Using a marker, make a dot for the placement of the nail on each piece of paper.