There’s plenty of stuff that I’ve called BS on about being preggo, but the nesting instinct is not one of them. Frankly, it’s a delight. Why wouldn’t I be jazzed that suddenly there’s another room of my house that I get to decorate?! I know that before pregnancy, I was very much, “Nurseries are dumb. A nursery doesn’t need a theme other than A Baby Sleeps Here.” And then I got this bun in my oven and realized that actually, nurseries are for the mama and to help keep her sane. Which is why I’ve picked up more crafts to keep me busy in the time I’m not drinking! And where will these crafts live?! Why, the nursery of course! And so, I have thrown myself into DIY nursery art like there’s no tomorrow.

I had originally planned to have a galaxy-themed nursery, making a big space-y mural to hang behind the crib. It’s a dope idea, but then I realized I have a shitton of fox decor and hey wouldn’t foxes make a good nursery theme! We are going gender-neutral no matter what, and hope to get two uses out of the nursery. I think foxes works just as well as galaxy as a theme, and in some ways, it’s much easier to shop for. AND THAT’S WHAT HAVING BABIES IS ABOUT: CONSUMERISM!

But there are a few things I’ve made for it and one of them is this pretty yarn fox canvas. Here’s how I made it!

Materials

I’m almost embarrassed to admit it but, this guy was “free.” As in, I already had everything I needed to make this. I know that’s not likely the case for most folks, but here’s what I needed. And even though I can’t give you an expected cost for this, it’s probably pretty cheap. Like, under $15 cheap.

• Stretched canvas
• Hammer & nail
• Paint of whatever kind and color you choose (I went with gray spray paint because I had it on hand.)
• Yarn of whatever kind and color you choose
• Access to a printer

Yep, that’s it. One of the things I love about minimalist DIY nursery art, or really minimalist DIY anything, really, is that there’s not a lot going on. Not a lot going on = not a lot of shit to buy = cheap! Clean and beautiful and inexpensive is the best way to craft, y’all.

The canvas I had was actually leftover from one of those “drink wine and paint a kind of basic/boring picture” events. It was an ugly hummingbird, so I just put Killz primer over it and boom — new canvas. The spray paint is actually leftover from my IKEA dresser makeover. And the yarn is some that I bought aspirationally and um, haven’t made much progress with. So — FREE!

Tape, Poke, and Paint

I used Google Draw to make my design using a couple other images as inspiration. You can download my PDF below if you’d like! It sized out pretty perfectly for an off-center fox on my 11 X 14 canvas. (Note that you definitely want to get a STRETCHED canvas for this, not one of those canvas boards–they’re much harder to poke through.) Google Draw may not the best tool in the world to use but I do like how it gives you options to change the ends of the lines to little circles.

When I did manage to get everything to line up, it made knowing where to poke the hole much easier!

So I taped the printed design onto the canvas at an aesthetically pleasing off-center and got to work. Like a gd genius, I cut up some Home Chef insulation and tucked that behind the back of the canvas for the nail to go into. This little fox has 25 holes and it took me all of 3 minutes to do this step. This is easy, easy stuff, y’all.

Then I spray painted the living hell out of it because I only wanted to do one coat. Got all the sides, got everything THICK, and let it dry over night. Any pools of color helped the texture look even better, so I’m very happy with the result. I re-poked the nail through all the holes to make sure nothing got clogged up during the painting process. Good to go!

Thread It & Hang

I had to widen the holes a bit to make sure that I could pass the yarn multiple times through some of the holes. This was easy enough to do with just a drill bit — no power tool required. From there, I tried doing the threading with a single long piece of yarn and realized it was actually considerably easier to just break it up. Working in multiple, shorter threads yielded a much cleaner finished product (even if the inside looks a bit of a mess.)

Now depending on your preference, you could hang this a number of different ways. Some folks are surely dead set on using wire and finishing it off properly. I’m pretty okay with a couple of level nails in the wall and just hanging it on that. But to each her own!

And that’s all folks! Looks mighty nice, if I do say so myself. A great way to add a personal touch through DIY nursery art — all you need are some simple, cheap materials and a surprisingly small amount of time!