DIY Cloud Lights Add An Ethereal Touch To Any Nursery

Do you tell your little ones you'd harness the sun and moon for them? What about the clouds? What if you could capture the sky and decorate their room with it, creating a calming, ethereal backdrop that looks great day or night? One clever DIY craft lets you create ambient cloud lights for a chic nursery, and the simple steps will leave you with store-quality lamps that are both budget-friendly and a new nursery must-have. By combining cloud-shaped wood or cardboard, a self-adhesive battery-operated light, string, and strong adhesive, you have the most amazing lamps that you might even want to use in other rooms of the house!

Gathering your supplies will be easy, and you can start by deciding how you want to create the actual clouds. You can find these unfinished wood cut-outs made by 24 Hour Crafts at Amazon. They can then be painted white. Or you can make your own cloud shapes with thin wood, plywood, or cardboard. If you choose this last material, you might want to double up on pieces to ensure the shape remains sturdy, since you will be adding paint and a light to the back. Making your own cloud shapes with uncut wood could require a hand saw, so keep this in mind. You can find clickable, battery-operated lights at Target and in many home stores, and rope or string is simple to grab at your local crafting stores. Lastly, keep a hot glue gun nearby or purchase Gorilla Glue to secure everything.

Once you've collected your items, choose a nice, soft white to paint your clouds. You can use a sponge to make more texture, which won't be as visible at night when the backlight is on, but will look more realistic during the day. If you don't want to sponge paint, just use a standard acrylic paint and paintbrush like @haleydawncoulter did to cover the side of the cloud that will face outwards toward the room. Once this has dried fully, add batteries to your click light then place the bottom of the click light on the underside of your clouds and secure with glue. You want to use enough that the plastic will stick to the wood and remain there, as this will need to be clicked from the front of the cloud to turn it on and, therefore, needs to be adhered tightly to the wood or cardboard.

Allow the glue to dry, then move on to adding a string, rope, or even a hook to the top of your cloud (tucked away on the underside) so you can hang it. You can make several of these clouds to cover one wall, then space them out for a truly unique design. If you want to get a little creative beyond standard paint, you can use cotton or stuffing like Poly-fil, available at Amazon, and glue it to the wood or cardboard. This will create a soft, fluffy cloud that feels more lifelike too.

Using the Poly-fil textured cloud design, you can also glue LED strip lights to the back of the clouds for a more colorful look. Combine these lamps with ambient lighting to help keep your child calm and relaxed when their clouds are lit. Most of these strip lights are self-adhesive, and you can wrap or lace them around the back of the cloud as many times as you need to hide them while creating fun backlighting in varying colors. If the strips allow you to choose certain colors via a remote, you can even alter these to create soothing colors for sleeping or bright, energizing colors for the morning.

Some of these strip lights do have plugs, so you need to install a cord cover to ensure your kids can't get to the wires. Battery-operated strip lights can have chunkier boxes to keep the batteries in, so these will need to be carefully tucked away if they don't fit behind the wood or cardboard. If you have the time and finesse, strip lights can create a colorful cloudscape in your little one's bedroom.