Modern Nursery Wall Stencil: DIY with Silhouette or Cricut

When I was researching ideas to make over Eleanor’s dirty, stained cave of a closet, there were countless bold wallpaper options and decals. The only problem was, the pricetag was pretty bold, too.

I wasn’t about to spend hundreds of dollars on a small, dingy closet, but if I was going to spend all the time and energy on bringing up to a functional, cute space I still wanted to do something fun. And honestly, in a house that’s otherwise fairly neutral and muted, the nursery is really the big chance for some color and whimsy and something a little different.

I found a modern boho hill type decal I liked online and figured out a way to recreate it with my Silhouette! It turned out so much better than I even thought it would, only cost about $10 in materials and took an afternoon of painting.

The best part about this design is that you can customize it with different colors and it really doesn’t matter if it looks uneven or a little messy – it just adds to the look.

Here’s how I created my modern nursery wall stencil with a Silhouette:

Tools & Materials

• Stencil vinyl – I used this one, which is actually Cricut vinyl but it worked just fine in my Silhouette machine
• Paint samples in as many colors as you’d like  – I used Behr colors Tanglewood which is a grey color, Retro Pink, and a mix of Retro Pink and Smoke Bush Rose
• Foam brushes
• A sponge – This one is optional, but for the middle grey color in my design I used a sponge to tie in with the whole sponge wall movement I’ve been seeing all over Instagram and Pinterest

How we did it:

Make your design in the Silhouette software

In a blank Silhouette document, select the flexishapes tool (the pizza-slice shaped one you’ll find in with the line drawing tool).

Click anywhere on the screen and click again a couple inches to the right which will make a straight line. After that, when you drag your cursor across to the left, it’ll start to draw a semicircle.

Stop dragging the cursor when you get to 180 degrees.

Draw a straight line across the open-ended bottom of the semicircle to close it off.

Copy, paste and mix it up

Now you’ve got one semicircle, copy the whole thing and paste it right next to the first one. Drag the rounded semicircle line up or the whole design out to the side to make it more narrow or wide, shorter or taller – whatever looks good to you works.

Repeat that three more times until you’ve got five little hills in a row and enlarge the design until it’s about 11 inches wide (almost the whole way across the mat).

Separate the design (if you’re planning to use more than one color)

If you want your mound design to be all the one color across them all, then move on to the next step but if not, you’re going to want to separate the design into two different stencils. Believe me, it’s going to make you curse a lot less in the longrun.

Because the mounds are so close together, you’d have to have the hands of a surgeon to paint them all different colors on the wall without them bleeding across to the next one.

To combat that, you’re going to make two stencils.

Copy your row of five mounds and paste them right below it. In the top set, delete the second and fourth mound.

In the bottom one, delete the first, third and fifth.

Draw a box around each of the two designs and make sure the boxes aren’t touching.

Cut the design on stencil vinyl

Load your stencil vinyl into your Silhouette or Cricut and make sure to select the stencil material in your cut settings. Let that bad boy do its thing.

When it’s done, pull away at the box you created around the two designs which if cut right, should leave the little mounds behind.

Now you’ve got your two stencils.

Visualize your space

This isn’t necessary, but really saved me time and stress. I used painter’s tape to lay out where I would put each set of mounds across my wall. I did some with the five mounds and some with only three, and just kind of eyeballed what should go where.

This also really helped to make sure the designs would be straight, because I held my level up to the painters tape to make sure each one was straight.

Start painting!

Put your first piece of vinyl on the wall along the top of the painters tape. I started with the three-mound stencil and made sure to really press down the edges so the paint wouldn’t bleed under and it had a good hold on the wall.

Dip your foam brush into your paint and wipe off any excess – it works best if you don’t have much paint on your brush at all.

Use a dabbing motion more than a wiping motion over the stencil and you’ll be less likely to have the paint seep underneath the edges.

Carefully peel the stencil vinyl away from the wall right after you’ve finished painting – don’t let it dry, do it right away.

Keep moving right along, alternating stencils

I found it best to alternate using the three-mound and the two-mound design on each section, so grab your two-mound stencil and line it up on your next area.

Keep going the whole way up your wall or area you’re painting, painting only one of the two stencils on each piece of painters tape.

At this point it’ll look like a whole lot of half-done designs, but you’ve got to let the first half of it dry before you put the second half of the design on the top of it or it might peel the paint or smuge.

Starting back at the bottom, finish off each design

Once you’ve done the first half of each design across your wall, go back to the beginning and carefully line up the opposite stencil over the top.

So for example if you started with the three-mound design and it’s now dry, line up the two-mound design over the top so it’ll make the full five-mound shape.

In my design, I did the grey color in the middle, the Retro Pink color on the outside two mounds, and my mixed color on the remaining ones.

I wanted different textures on the design, so for the outside mounds I did a solid paint, the second and fourth ones I dabbed with the foam brush about 80% of the way, and the grey one I used a regular old dish sponge and used very little paint to lightly dab over it and try for a marbled kind of look.

Touch ups

The nature of stencils and using vinyl means that there are probably going to be some spots to touch up. I had a few bleeds underneath the design or a few spots where I accidentally got paint between the vinyl and the painters tape, so I had to go back with a little craft brush and fix it.

This really only took about 10 minutes, but does require you have some of the original wall color on hand.

Marvel at your budget decal hack

Stand back, look at your finished wall and count all the money left in your wallet that you’ve saved.

This was an early step in my nursery closet makeover and I’m almost ready for a full reveal! Make sure to check back for the built-in shelves, DIY closet rod with rope, a cute ‘girl power’ printable and some serious closet organization.

You might also like our favorite boho nursery printables from Etsy.

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