Project: Monogram Art for Nephews

      I have gained two nephews in the last two months - awesome!  Both are healthy and doing well, which is such a precious blessing for our entire family.  Both have super cute nurseries, so when I asked if they wanted me to paint something, I was thrilled and flattered that they both said yes.  I used the same technique on both, and it is really similar to what I did for our other nephew, Shane, which you can see here.  I thought I would show it again, because it really is a simple way to create something unique to match their nurseries.
      First up - here is baby True's.



I was trying to match this nursery, which has only gotten cuter with the addition of wonderful True.  Here's a very brief, phone picture tutorial of what I did.  I have been neck deep in adoption paperwork and did not feel like pulling out the big camera for this.



      I started with a blank canvas, obviously.  As I type "obviously," I am laughing to myself, because I have a bad habit of describing things as "obvious" that would not be obvious to lots of people.  John is continually telling me how annoying this is.  But, I did start with a blank canvas, and I would assume that that would be obvious, obviously.  I digress.
      I use this stuff called "Gesso" mixed in with the paint to give it more texture.  I painted the entire canvas one color, and while the paint was still wet, I stuck letters that I had printed out and cut out onto the canvas.  That made it fairly simple to paint the letters right where I wanted them.  I was trying to keep this one with clean lines and modern-ish looking, so I used painters tape to make white lines.  The end.
      I really enjoy font-hoarding - a hobby that Pinterest has helped to perpetuate.  Both fonts that I used were found through Pinterest.  I used "Appleberry" on True's and "Ribbon" on Max's.  (You can google them to find the free downloads, or find them on my Pinterest board with links.)  Both of those were free, and since the letters are the main attraction in monogram art, I think it is important to have good ones.
      Here's baby Max's.  He was born this week, and I have had the privilege of meeting him this weekend.  More on that to come, including pictures.



His nursery has little rocket ships on the bedding, so I wanted something that coordinated with that without being too matchy-matchy.  I like how the vibe of it turned out.  It is always a bit intimidating to make something for someone else to put in their home.  Especially a home that has a front door that looks like this, custom designed and installed by my brother.

He is crazy talented, folks.  Seriously.  Hopefully that gives you some ideas on an easy art-project for a child's room!