little boy nursery art {the giving tree}

We celebrated at a baby shower with some very special friends of ours who are expecting their first sweet baby boy.

And we decided to make a little something for their nursery.

The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein is one of my very favorite all time children’s books. I grew up loving it, and never really understood the underlying wonderfulness of it, until I had children of my own. The kids may or may not bring the green book to me so they can watch mommy struggle through it and ask me why I’m crying.

Every time.

To me, motherhood… when I became a mother, was one of those things where we don’t even know what’s about to hit us, until it does. And here we are, with this amazing human that we really don’t deserve at all. They depend on us, and we will fail because we’re imperfect. But it’s this moment of becoming a mother… of becoming a parent – no matter what that process looks like – that changes everything.

The power of parenthood, the love that we feel… it’s transformative. It’s life altering. It’s  grace and unconditional love and growing pains. It’s sacrificial and challenging to the point where it’s absolutely impossible without a pure love. It’s taught me so much about everything, and I’m still learning daily. It blows my mind in an oh-my-goodness-what-were-we-thinking-but-wow-what-a-tremendously-undeserving-amazing-grace-filled-process-this-is kinda way.

So we thought this little quote that comes from a sweet, unassuming children’s book would make a symbolic, unexpected addition to their nursery.

Here’s how we did it.

We cut a piece of oak board down press board to 4 x 3 using our RYOBI circular saw and stained it. Remember, you can have your wood cut at your local home improvement store for free, so no worries if you don’t have a saw.

When the stain was dry, I covered it all in a fat painter’s tape.

Then I took an overhead to the board, and traced the type after I designed it. {here if you’d like to try your hand at it!}

Ps my hair was totally in my face so I stole Emeron’s hair clip. She busted me later. She doesn’t do the sharing of the hair clips.

When I finished tracing it {I just used a medium-tipped sharpie so it showed up well} I took an X-Acto and started cutting out all the words.

Now in retrospect, you don’t need as much tape as I used, but I have a ton of rolls and wasn’t sure where the lettering would go. Sometimes it’s best to go with it, and see how it all turns out. {If this project is starting to look familiar, you may remember this project, here.}

Once it was all cut out, I took a piece of plexiglass that we had cut, from our local glass store, which allowed a one inch border on each side. When we figured out where that would go, we taped off the borders as well. This will give it an extra polished look.

Then we filled in all the open, negative space with white. {Chantilly Lace} And removed the tape.

Helpful hint: There’s a time frame that’s ideal for removing this tape… and if you’re working with latex paint, it will not be when it is dried completely.

If you’re painting with a lighter color on top of the dark, it will take a few coats. So when you’re going back on your second coat, try to start removing the tape as you finish. If it dries before you can get to it, try another coat and remove it while it’s wet. This usually helps make it more flexible to allow you to do what you need to do.

No worries about the imperfections, as you can see below, we had those, too.

We’ll get to that.

When the white was dry, we went back over it with horizontal tape, leapfrogging all the pieces so it was two and two… with two spaces removed for each one as seen below.

Then we carefully went back in and filled it all in with blue. {This is Benjamin Moore’s Lake Victoria} as seen in our bedroom.

I used a thinner, crafting brush for in between the letters and a bigger brush for in larger spaces in between the stripes. As we painted, we removed those tape lines as well, for a crisper finished look. So when we were finished, it looked like this.

Then I went back and touched up any edges, and if there was any paint on the stain, simply scratched it up with my X-Acto blade. Around the entire sign, I went back with a white dry brush, lightly, to add some texture. And on top of that, a little stain for an antiqued, vintage look. I used a bit of a wipe on wipe off process.

Last, we even used a thin brush in various places in each letter, to add a little dimension to the type so it wasn’t too flat. Cabot has a great paint quality about their stain, so it made for a great finishing stain with this one, to work with.

It gave it a really fun, one a kind, antiqued look.

Once it dried over night, we went back with our plexiglass the next morning, and laid it on top, with six brass screws. We had our expert assistant help us out, of course.

You don’t have to use plexiglass, but we’re fans of that polished look, and it protects the paint from chipping later if it were to be scraped.

And we were finito!

Just a little reminder and sweet sentiment for a precious baby boy!

It kind of gives me baby fever.

For 2.5 whole seconds.

As always, let us know if you try it. Have an inspired day!

For more handmade nursery ideas, be sure to check these out, here!