DIY Dorm Decor

I love to browse through the DIY & Crafts section of Pinterest. It’s how I spend a majority of my time. I’ve made countless DIY projects, and I love to keep making them, even though I’m running out of room to put everything. Well, I’m going off to college soon, and I figured that I needed to make some things for my room! (In fact, the day that this post goes live, I’ll be moving into my dorm!) I settled on making my school letters and door signs for my roommate and suite mates! I am in love with how everything turned out!

USC Letters

This was my first project that I started this summer. I got my supplies from Hobby Lobby and Michael’s. I found these letters on sale at Hobby Lobby. They were just what I wanted–not too ornate and just the right size. I knew I wanted to do some form of chevron with my school colors and maybe a metallic. The gold went wonderfully with the white, garnet, and black.

I made my own chevron stencil and traced it onto the letters. I then went in with my paint and carefully outlined and filled in the chevrons. Having the chevrons line up on the bottom was going to be too difficult, so I decided to just paint the whole bottom black. I love how these turned out!

Monogram Door Signs

These took FOREVER. I did these while I was home recovering from surgery. I’m surprised they turned out as well as they did considering the fact I was on a lot of pain meds.

I found something similar to this on Pinterest and decided to put my own spin on it. I found these flat 5×7 canvases at Hobby Lobby. It was a pack of five for I think like $3.99 or $4.99. I used painter’s tape to achieve the straight lines, but painter’s tape always has a tendency to bleed. After I removed the tape, I went in an cleaned up the lines with white paint.

I originally wanted to paint the monograms, but after I drew them and started painting, the lines weren’t straight, and it just didn’t look good. I opted for printing the monograms. You can use Microsoft Word, but I used Adobe Illustrator. For the monogram, I made a 4-inch circle and arranged the letters accordingly. I used the font Breamcatcher. Check out my favorite fonts for July 2015. For the outlining circle, I printed a circle template that was slightly larger than the monogram and painted it with coordinating colors. I absolutely love how these turned out. I really hope my suite mates and my roommates like them!

If you have any questions about how I made these, feel free to email me at livingthegraylife@gmail.com or leave a comment down below! Since I made these while recovering, I didn’t take any pictures of the steps during the process.

What dorm crafts have you made? I love to hear from you all!

-Abigail T.