Last week I shared Stella’s new minimal room, bright white with pops of pink and metallic is the name of the game! There are a lot less DIY details throughout this space, as compared to her first nursery (barring the fact that the whole room has been a dIY makeover…), but there are a few details and tutorials to share from it and I thought it would be fun to kick off her room DIYs with my favorite new project, these custom sheets!
Finding the right sheets for Stella’s room has been a challenge from the beginning, even in her other room. I knew I wanted to bring in a pattern but it was hard, nay impossible, to find patterned sheets that weren’t too patterned. I knew I really wanted minimal here and I found no options for big, bolder, more simple patterns in my searches (if you know of any, please link to them in the comments, I’d love to see!)
So I created these sheets, featuring just one bold pattern, repeated in no special order and only a few times over the sheets. Your eye is definitely drawn to them (no pun intended :D) without making that area feel way too..WHOA…you know? This tutorial could be followed to create any pattern you’d like! Dots, diamonds, scallops, animal silhouettes, you name it! But my favorite little trendy nursery item right now as got to be the sleepy eyes.
They’re the cutest little creation but as of yet, I’ve only seem them as wall decals and popping up a little bit here and there on pillows and the like (ooo! Use this tutorial to make a set of pillowcases! If I hadn’t just made my own set of pillowcases that I’m totally in love with, I’d be all over that.)
So, I thought I’d bring them into Stella’s room in a more unique way and created these super cute sheets that only took about 45 minutes total. I’ve included the stencil for these sleepy eyes further on in this post, but as I said before, you could follow these instructions and make anything you wanted. And feel free to expand beyond crib sheets and do them on your bed or for your older children!
- Materials
- Sleepy eyes stencil (optional) //
- Freezer paper //
- Iron //
- Sheets //
- Martha Stewart craft paint in desired color
1.Print out the provided stencil on regular copy paper. Or make any pattern you want following these same directions!
2. LIGHTLY (just barely glaze over) iron a sheet of freezer paper over top of this printed sheet. You can also print directly onto freezer paper by ironing it on first and then loading it in, but having to cut it perfectly to size seems like a pain to me so this is the way I prefer to stencil.
3. Use an X-acto knife to cut out the eye shapes
4. Separate your freezer paper from your normal paper and cut the two stencils apart. (you don’t have to use both sets of eyes but I think it makes the process go a little easier and faster. I actually ended up printing the page twice and using four sets.
5. Set your stencils out on your sheets in the desired layout. I decided to keep my sheet on my crib mattress while I painted. Because the mattress is covered in plastic, I knew I could remove any paint that seeped through and there ended up being hardly any :)
6. Use a brush to paint over your stencils.
7. Remove and replace your stencils and use them again. I didn’t like to use them more than twice, which is why I used four sets of eyes. The paint makes them stop adhering so well eventually.
8. To touch up uneven lines, or places where the paint may have soaked through the stencil, us a small brush and tidy them up as needed.
9. All your sheets to dry as directed on the bottle (overnight is preferred or at least 6 hours).
I really just love that I was able to achieve the look I was going for without too much effort, and spending like no money! I mean, plain white sheets are like maybe $7 each? Not bad at all. Much better than, say a set of sheets from Land of Nod. They really give her bed the “pop” that I think it should have in a non-traditional way. I think it completes the look so well that I don’t even need a crib skirt or much added decor at all. I definitely think I’ll be doing this to all my other blank sheets! Maybe in other patterns too, I’ll keep you updated!
