Pottery Barn Knock Off: Nursery Word Plaques

I have spent many a night searching the beloved internet for nursery decor for Baby G. Forever ago, I fell in love with these word plaques from Pottery Barn...

source

As usual, I didn't love the $150+ price tag...so like any good DIY gal, I made my own!

{Excuse the horrible backdrop. I was out of ideas on how to photograph them since I couldn't hang them on her nursery wall...it's not even close to being put together yet! The only space I found that was big enough was our glamorous cement patio...gorgeous right?!}

I loved them first for the simplicity of the idea...taking pretty colors easily pulled from the nursery..

And I also loved the idea of using simple words with a simple meaning. 

I changed the "laugh" to "dance"...(this mama has a soft spot for dance in her heart!)

And how appropriate was this one since her daddy's a pilot!

But all the words make me smile, since they're all things that I hope our baby grows up to do!

Pottery Barn's plaques are painted. I am by no means an artist, so I took an easier way out. 

Follow along and I'll show you how I made mine using:

 wood, craft paint, scrapbook paper, and Mod Podge.

I picked out a patterned scrapbook paper and a coordinating solid color for each plaque. Then I matched up a tube of craft paint to match each paper. Since I was making 5 plaques, I had 5 different designs of paper, 5 different solid colored papers, and 5 different colors of craft paint. You'll need a few pieces of each patterned paper, depending on how big each plaque is.

First, I bought a 10 foot piece of 8 inch wide pine at Lowes. It was around $8. I had my hubby cut out 5 lengths of board, according to the dimensions shown on the Pottery Barn website. {I decided to not use the name plaque since I plan to put her name into the room elsewhere.}

If you don't have power tools, you can have these cut FOR FREE right at Lowes or Home Depot when you buy the board! {We had our big long board cut into two sections so that it would fit into our vehicle.}

Next, I painted the edges and sides of each plaque.

Then, I cut the patterned scrapbook paper to fit each plaque, and used Mod Podge to glue it to the front of the board. I just used a foam brush and slathered the Mod Podge onto the board, and placed the paper carefully in place. Make sure to smooth it out quickly with your finger tips to get all the air bubbles and wrinkles out. I added Mod Podge on top of the seams and the edges to make sure they didn't peel up.

Then came the not-so-fun part. I printed off letters from Microsoft Word and cut them out...to use as a stencil to trace onto the solid colored paper, to then cut out again. Does this make sense? Probably not. And this was probably not the quickest way to do this. {The quickest way would have been to put myself out of my misery and buy a Silouette! Siigh.} But this seemed to be the easiest, and cheapest, way to me. However you want to arrive at it, you're going to need the letters of each word cut out of the solid scrapbook paper.

Once you have all your letters cut out, glue them onto the boards with more Mod Podge!

Finally, apply a finish coat of Mod Podge (or you can use spray sealer) over the entire board. It will all dry clear & protect your hard work. Woohoo! You're done!

Now hang those pretty plaques on the wall and make your little one smile!

{Of course these could easily be changed up to go in a little boys room! The best part about making something yourself is that its 100% customizable!}

Linking to:
Blue Cricket Design