When I was pregnant with my second son, I knew I wanted to DIY some art for his room. I had a couple of old frames in various sizes at hand and decided on making a cross-stitch gallery wall. So I started combing through Pinterest for inspiration. I did not have a very specific theme for his room but had my heart set on animals for the art. Then I came across these designs. I loved that they were unique and thought it was a fun way of adding the nursery colours to the artworks. I liked that it was not realistic animals, just the silhouette outline with a fun pattern.
The Frames
Before I started designing the patterns I decided on the layout of the frames. I had 2 small, 2 medium, 2 large and 1 extra-large frame to work with. I played around until I came up with an arrangement I liked. The amount and sizes lent themselves to a formal arrangement instead of organic. As they were all different colours, I spray painted the frames to create a cohesive look. I used the primer grey – with most spray paint brands, the primer grey is gorgeous.
The Patterns
I used the elephant, whale and bunny patterns as on Etsy, but modified the colours for our nursery. I also designed a giraffe, penguin, tortoise and deer patterns of my own. I included the tortoise in his birth announcement sampler in the biggest frame. The fact that I designed the bulk of the patterns gave me the flexibility of making them the exact size I needed for the frames I had on hand. I used animal silhouettes I found online and traced them onto the patterns I had already drawn in CorelDraw.
The Colours
I also chose the colours for the designs to go with the nursery. We had bedding picked out in grey and aqua, and I wanted grey curtains. But I thought a bit of yellow would brighten up the room, so I incorporated the yellow into the patterns. I used different shades of blue, yellow, grey and aqua/teal in the designs for a nice spectrum of colours. I chose what I had on hand in my cross-stitch supplies to save costs.
After I stretched the designs for framing on the mounting board, they were ready for the frames.
Free Printable Patterns
I want to give you free printable cross-stitch patterns as well to use for art in a nursery or playroom. The exact patterns for the elephant, whale and bunny is available for sale on Etsy, so I can’t offer you those for free. (This is not an affiliate link). So I made some silhouette animal cross stitch patterns to share with you. They are available in pdf format. I did not specify any colours. You can choose the colours to suit the room you are using them in. But I would suggest doing the backstitch border in black or a couple of shades darker than the cross-stitch.
You can download the free printable animal cross-stitch patterns. To get access to them, please subscribe to my email list and the password for the printables library will be sent to you. If you are already a subscriber you can access the library here. The password is in every email I send out.
I hope you enjoy these!
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Goodbye for now
