lover of beauty, passionate about purpose

DIY Project: Handmade Nursery Art

I made these wall hangings for a friend of mine. Her nursery is being done in a cute elephant theme and her primary colors are brown and blue. You could really use this idea to match any design or decor. Here is how to make these for yourself.

What you need:

  • Three 5 x 5 Paper Mache art boards ($2.99 at craft supply stores)
  • Ribbon for hanging
  • Scissors
  • Acrylic paints and paint brushes
  • Card stock for printing your design
  • Permanent spray adhesive

Steps:

  1. Remove rope strands from the boards and discard.
  2. Choose a style of ribbon and cut 3 strands the exact same size.
  3. Apply your base coat to cover the brown paper mache. Paint everything, including the back side.
  4. Start painting! It helped me to sketch out my design on the computer before diving into painting. I used acrylic paints and paint brushes. All three boards were given a different pattern in the background.
  5. I drew the elephant in Adobe Illustrator and chose two colors for the elephants. Then I printed them out on card stock and cut them out, leaving a little white border to help them stand out against the painted backgrounds.
  6. I tested out the placement before adhering the paper elephants to the boards. Using permanent spray adhesive, I adhered the elephants to the boards. Tie on the ribbon to hang and your done!

To see a full-size photo of the finished product, go here.

UPDATE: After several requests, I’ve finally posted the pdf for you to download. Download here!

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Comments (13)

  1. Christa Baca says May 7, 2008 at 3:54 pm

    Evie! You are truly a genius! I am in the middle of an art project here and I never thought to apply my art to paper mache boards. I have some art I have done prior to this project and I mounted it to some press board that I got at home depot. (Um, can you say really heavy???)

    Thanks! You are an angel!

  2. evie s. says May 7, 2008 at 4:00 pm

    Great! Yes, I considered using square canvas boards, but at $11 each I liked the idea of using the paper mache boards better. Much easier on my wallet!

  3. blacksama says December 27, 2008 at 9:00 am

    wow that’s cool,, I wanted such an idea to make for my nofew ^-^

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  5. Lisa Ensor says June 8, 2009 at 4:37 pm

    hey! those were for me!!!! and I LOOOOOOOVE them :) one is hanging on the door of little baby b’s room!

    thanks again- they are so special :)

  6. evie s. says June 8, 2009 at 7:51 pm

    I’m so glad you liked them Lisa! It sure was a fun project and a great experiment since I hadn’t done anything like that before.

  7. stephanie says July 13, 2009 at 4:11 am

    these are soo cute I love them!!

  8. stephanie says April 7, 2010 at 4:09 am

    hey love the nursery art and working on my own right now doing some geometric shapes. Anyhow do you have the image of the elephant that you used? would like to get this so i can create something like yours for a friend as a gift. thanks so much and happy crafting.

  9. laila matienzo says June 23, 2010 at 5:45 pm

    thanks for the information it can help me to do my art assignment.

  10. Maria says June 24, 2010 at 9:07 pm

    Hi Evie,

    Such a nice project, thanks for sharing. I have one doubt..I went to art store to buy mache board, they have no idea what that is. Can you tell me where I can buy it?

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  12. Bre says June 9, 2011 at 6:27 pm

    Thats wonderful! I want to make something like it and i just love the elephants, it matches the crib bedding im getting.. do you have a template for the elephants i can have or can you explain how you made them?

  13. Danielle says September 12, 2011 at 10:09 am

    Hi there, we have elephant bedding as well and I’m wondering where you found the templates for the elephants? They are perfect! Thanks!

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