A Week of Boy Wall Art - Part 1: Felt Transportation Wall Art

When I was putting together my little monkey's room I found it difficult to find anything that I wanted to put on the walls.  Boy wall art is very limited (in my opinion) so I designed my own to fit the theme & colour scheme.

Mason's Room

In the last while, I've been working on a number of projects for little boy birthdays, shower and 'welcome baby' gifts.  I love giving wall art as a gift because it can be individualized, it's versatile and (if it's done well) can be very thoughtful.  Plus, who doesn't want something beautiful for their walls!?


Throughout the week, I'll share the ones I've created. Sorry, most of them don't have pictures of each step to go with the quick explanations of how I made them but if you need step-by-step pictures for any of them, please let me know!

This is the set of transportation-themed images I created for Mason's room (I took these pictures right before he went to bed this evening, which is why there's poor lighting, because I wanted to make sure this post was done tonight!).

Transportation Theme Felt Wall Art

I love working with felt.  It's one of my favourite materials because it's so versatile.  Once I'd decided the type of look I wanted behind Mason's bed, it wasn't a hard decision that felt would be a perfect material for the project.  Despite being very graphic images, the felt softens them so they feel appropriate for a child's room but the design will allow them to grow with him as he gets older.

I think this is my favourite of them all.

What I used
- Ikea Ribba frames
- Craft felt in the colours from his room (available at Michael's, Fabricland and some dollar stores)
- Clear packing tape
- Scissors
- Printed images of cool forms of transportation (clip art found on Google Images)

Method
- Save the images to your computer and insert them into MS Word
- Adjust the size of the image according to your frame so they fit correctly in the space then print them
- Cut closely around the outside of each image - give yourself approximately 1/8 to 1/4 of an inch.
- Place the image onto the felt and tape over it with clear packing tape (this is the BEST way I've found to cut detailed images in felt because it stabilizes it and gives you a ton of control over what you're cutting).
- Cut out the image.  If there are some small details, re-tape the paper to the felt as needed.
- Cut a different coloured piece of felt to the size of the frame - this will be your background
- Place the felt image pieces onto the background felt, once they're in the correct position, put the matting on top and then the glass.  Carefully, put all the pieces into the frame and secure the back.

Look at the detail you can achieve using felt!

Note - I didn't use any form of adhesive with my images because the felt 'sticks' to itself quite well.  However if you felt (hahaha... wasn't intentional...) it was necessary use a glue stick to attach the pieces.  White craft glue will not work (I tried).

- Jacs