DIY: First we had each other sign

I had an empty wall in our living room and right before Christmas we put up a shelf and filled it with...Christmas stuff. Since Christmas has been over my shelf has been empty and the wall has been bare. I was so excited to finally get a shelf up in our house because I love to fill up shelves. Since having our house I have kept the decor to a minimum and kind of started to appreciate the simplicity of what we did have. With Eli on the way however, I knew I needed more room for pictures or other sentimental items. I am still trying to be sure I don't cross the line of well decorated and cluttered though. I know as soon as Eli gets scooting around the house will have plenty of that without my help. 

Anyways, moving on to what this post is really about. I have been looking at ETSY and Pintrest for different decor ideas and someone pinned this adorable wall decal that read "First we had each other, then we had you, now we have everything". It was super cute and almost brought a little tear to my eye (darn hormones). The thing was it was featured in the nursery and it doesn't really go with our theme. I thought about incorporating it to my shelf but didn't want it to be a huge focal point, as cute as it is, it is borderline cheesy especially for guests. I googled the quote and found some great ideas and decided to go with a framed, personalized version.

I spent about an hour collecting items to fill my shelf with. I was in heaven. I also found a couple of great frame options for my quote sign. Once arriving home I unwrapped all my new goodies like it was Christmas morning and jumped straight on the computer to create my sign.

I didn't have to play with the fonts too much to get something I was happy with. I did have to play with the coloring though. I wanted to quote to stand out and our personalized stuff to be sort of background. I started with a light beige color at 50% opacity but in the end it worked best 100% opacity. It showed up much lighter on paper. 

Next I had chosen several pieces of scrapbook paper and trimmed them down to standard paper size so I didn't have to fight with my printer. 

After printing out on a few different sheets, I actually liked the brown, almost cardboard looking sheet the best. The fonts and colors looked great on it and it also looked really nice in the frame.

You couldn't see our personlized stuff on this paper but it would be nice if it was just the quote.

This one was the winner for sure.  

I just love the way this turned out. 

So after cutting to size I took the paper and stuck it in the frame just like a photo. I taped around it to be sure it wouldn't slide around and then nailed it to the perfect spot about our shelf. It was deserving of a spot on the wall not just sitting on the shelf. As a side note, hanging pictures or wall hangings just above a shelf is a great way to add depth/height to your decor without having big tall items.

 

Entire shelf in action. I do have some empty frames waiting on Eli's arrival.

So there we go. I love it! Mark was closing last night and that can either go one of two ways...I become a lazy bum or I go crazy with mega house cleaning and redecorating. He came home and loved our newly full shelf along with my sign. AND all the other cleaning and organizing I did yesterday but that's all for another time. In other shelf news....

I got this really cute "All because..." sign for $2!!! It looks adorable with Eli's little ultrasound picture on it. I also really like my chicken wire frame too. It will be a good spot to change things out seasonally too.

Have a great weekend!

Danielle