• Let painting the nursery bring out your creativity.babys room image by guiney from Fotolia.com
  
  You don’t have to be a Rembrandt, Picasso or even a trained painter to decorate your child’s nursery. Instead, a little bit of creativity and a few supplies can help you create a hand-painted masterpiece ready to welcome your little one into the world. Let inspiration guide your paintbrush as you design something personalized.
  
  

Family Tree

• A ruler, pencil, stencils and black or colored paint are all you need to create a hand-painted family tree for your nursery wall. Before starting the project, research your family ancestry online or by talking to older relatives. Sketch the tree on paper to use as your guide before beginning the painting. An entire wall may be used for a large family tree with lots of branches or just a small section for a smaller family.
  
  Trace lines of the tree with a ruler, marking the lines for family members. Stencils help you spell out family members’ names (if you’ve got nice handwriting, you can letter the names without stencils); use black or a paint color that matches your nursery theme to fill in the stencils. To further personalize the family tree, visiting family members can paint their hands with a washable paint color and leave a handprint underneath their branches and names, giving your child a quick view of his entire “tree.”
  
  

Mood Colors

• Although the littlest nursery residents can’t yet distinguish or react to colors, using hues to set the mood in a room can have an effect on the child as he ages and also on the parents. The color green, according to the Decorating Kids Rooms website, is a refreshing color that can lift self-esteem and encourage calm and restfulness, which your child may feel without even understanding why. The site also encourages painting colors found along the ground to “ground” the child, with hues such as beige, brown and soft yellow to bring on comfort and relaxation. Choose specific colors to make the room look smaller or larger. For example, blue-violet and white can help a small nursery appear bigger.
  
  

Growth Chart

• If you’ve got a blank corner, wall or door in your nursery, in just a couple of minutes, you can have a hand-painted growth chart ready to start tracking your child. Paint the wall rather than buying a generic-looking chart which may peel off the wall. Paint colors that pick up the themes of your crib bedding or curtains may be found in any hardware store; select one for the main floor-to-ceiling line of the growth chart and another to mark off small sections. A ruler or laser level can help you get all of the paint lines straight, even when you’re working by hand. Good growth-chart designs include a palm tree, giraffe, skyscraper and tall tower of books, ready to be marked off with your child’s growth spurts.