diy: watercolor calligraphy art

If you’ve been following along here for a while now, you know that Lydia’s nursery is my favorite space in our house; it’s so hard to pick one favorite thing in her room because I love everything so much, but I have to say, the gallery wall was the one thing that finally made it feel complete.  It was also the toughest detail of the nursery, trying to decide what was going to go up on the wall, as well as getting the layout right….even for someone like me who has hung her fair share of gallery walls!  Chalk it up to OCD and an unnerving quest for perfection, but I’m so happy with how it turned out!  I’ve gotten a bunch of emails since I posted pics last year, asking where I bought the watercolor “You will forever be my always” print and I’m proud to say I actually made it!  For those of us who aren’t blessed with the talent or patience to write calligraphy (or even halfway decent penmanship), it really is pretty easy to do this yourself.  All you need is some watercolor paper, an inexpensive watercolor palette, thin (relatively stiff) paintbrushes and painters tape.

In Microsoft Word I used Bombshell font to create my quote.  You can print it in bold black and be done with it, but I thought it would be easier to trace the letters if I made the background black and the letters white (it wasn’t; stick with the white background and black font).  I had Kinko’s print it out for me; they can print it as big as you like for pennies, practically!  I ended up getting two copies – one on regular paper and the other on cardstock:

Next, I taped the quote to my glass door and then taped a piece of 11×15 watercolor paper on top.  I traced it lightly with a sharp pencil:

Mix your watercolors until you get the shade you want and then carefully paint within the lines.  Once it’s completely dry (I let mine dry for a full 24 hours) use an eraser to get rid of the pencil lines.  Easy peasy!

Happy Hump Day!