Letters on the Wall, and How I Chose My Kid’s Name.

As soon as I found out I was having a boy at about four months pregnant (almost a whole three years ago!), I knew that I wanted to put his name on the wall in fun graphic letters. One night, I found myself wanting to mock-up the wall display but I didn’t have an actual name to mock-up (my husband and I gave each other equal veto power). I’d already collected a few inspirational alphabet images, so I just went ahead with a recent name that my husband had suggested (and that I had vetoed): Beckett.  You know, just to see what it looked like. It was seven letters, easy to center on a wall, and would take up plenty of space. It was filled with straight lines from the T’s and curves from the B and C. Sure…why not?

Needless to say that after a few hours of photoshopping and digital frame insertion, I was totally past the “everyone’s going to think we named our kid after David Beckham because my husband likes soccer a lot” and was no longer able to see this tiny person as anything other than a Beckett.  And so he is.  And I love it.

All I did was order seven 6” square black frames from an online frame discounter, and set up the images I’d found (via Flickr…thanks Creative Commons!) to print at the right size. I got them professionally printed to be crisp and lovely, and set to work with my exacto-knife to get the photos snug in their frames.

Now that he’s older and has real preferences, we’ve moved the letters to a smaller shelf in his new room. Due to the length of the shelf I had to shorten things a bit to “Beck” (which we don’t call him, but ehh, oh well). I let him choose which E he liked best and it’s no surprise that he chose the orange one!  We have them placed next to a “Big B” and a little handmade stuffed mountain goat that his Aunt and Uncle got him in Mexico.

Given the length of your child’s name (or perhaps your desire to frame the entire alphabet) your mileage may vary in terms of cost and degree of difficulty. In any case, this is project I highly recommend. I still love the letters more than two years later!

Design consultations for all styles and budgets: JGB Interiors.