Cute & Easy DIY Alligator Initial Door Hanger

When my sister had her baby last year, I made her an alligator initial door hanger to hang on her hospital door.  Since she was having a boy, I didn't want to make anything too frilly or froo-froo. I wanted to keep it simple but still cute.

The baby nursery was the inspiration for the shower I had thrown her last year. You can see the alligator baby shower by clicking here.  I created the door hanger to match her nursery theme-Pottery Barn Alligator Madras.  

List of Supplies:

-White monogram letter (from Michaels)

-Painted wooden alligator cut-out (from Hobby Lobby)

-Navy blue, black and bright blue acrylic paint (I mixed the colors to get the right shade of navy blue)

-Paintbrush

-Pencil

-Ruler

-Ribbon (about 1 yard)

-Scissors

-Hot glue 

Step 1:

Using a ruler and pencil, measure and lightly mark the spacing for the stripes. I drew 8 lines about 1 1/2" in width. I extended the lines to the sides of the letter.

Step 2:

 Paint the stripes starting with the top stripe in navy and skipping every other stripe. Although the letter was thin, I painted the sides to extend the stripes on the side view. Allow paint to dry.

Step 3:

Find where you want to place alligator cut-out then hot glue in place.  Allow glue to dry completely.

Step 4:

Measure ribbon to make a bow for hanger and allow for extra ribbon to be glued to the back of the letter. Cut ribbon to desired length. Tie a bow in the center of the ribbon and glue ribbon to the back side of the letter.  Allow glue to dry.

Step 5:

Hang your new oh-so-cute monogram initial on a nursery door or child's bedroom wall! 

It's also a perfect and easy DIY gift to make for a new baby for the hospital door hanger. This could even be used to decorate a front door if you're having an alligator themed party!

Keeping it simple yet still cute, you can make this too! 

Alligator Themed Baby Shower

My sister Laura is due in October this year with her first baby.  I can't wait to meet my little nephew Zain. 

Having 3 kids myself, my sister has given me three awesome baby showers (I'll probably post some of those baby showers later). Given that, I wanted to make this day very special for Laura.  Her best friend Michelle and I hosted an Alligator themed baby shower.  The shower theme was inspired by her nursery and colors- navy, white and green. 

Pottery Barn Alligator Madras Nursery Bedding

When Michelle and I started planning the shower, I created a secret board in Pinterest to gather my ideas.  For those who are not familiar with what Pinterest is, you need to get on that right away.  The secret board was a perfect way to be able to plan a shower without my sister seeing all the details and ideas since she follows my Pinterest boards. One day when I logged into Pinterest on my computer, I was invited to pin on another person's fashion board.  This was mind-blowing.  So I decided to try this and invite Michelle to pin on my Baby Shower Idea board...and it worked!  This was a great way for both us to collaborate our ideas that we pinned so we can visually see what we wanted to do for the shower.  Don't you just love Pinterest?!

As I was searching for ideas on Pinterest, I found an idea for red, white, and blue painted mason jars from It All Started With Paint with a great tutorial. I wanted to use this idea for my sister's baby shower but instead of red stripes painting the mason jars navy and white stripes.  I just adore how cute these turned out! 

Painted Striped Mason Jars

I found these wide mouth mason jars at Hobby Lobby (one of my favorite stores).  You can use regular size mason jars, but I wanted to be able to fit more utensils and straws. The chevron paper straws were also from Hobby Lobby. Using acrylic paint I already had at home and some painter's tape; I started my first baby shower project.  The tutorial suggested using washi tape and that probably would have been better to use but I already had the blue painters tape. When I pulled off the painters tape, it took chunks of the paint off and I had to meticulously retouch the paint stripes.  Once the paint completely dried, I used sand paper to rough up some areas. I focused removing the paint on the words to make them stand out and removed paint here and there to make it look more rustic. 

 There isn't a whole lot of alligator baby shower party decorations to buy at stores; so my only option was to make all the custom décor myself. For my next project I wanted a banner so I created this "It's A Boy" Pinwheel Banner.  Using my handy-dandy Cricut machine I also made alligator cupcake toppers 

Pinwheel Banner and Alligator Cupcake Toppers

Pinwheel Banner:

1. Start by making the pinwheels with navy and white card stock paper. 
2. Cut circles out in different patterns of scrapbook paper (the chevron, striped and crocodile paper I used was from Hobby Lobby).
3. Cut the letters out using the "Cindy Loo" Cricut cartridge with my Cricut machine. 
4. Then I cut out 2 different sizes of alligators with the "Create a Critter" cartridge (I thought it would be cute to make one mama alligator and one baby alligator for each side of the banner).  The alligators are attached using foam dots to give them more dimension.
5. Punch 2 small holes towards the top of the pinwheels to string ribbon through. I tied knots after each pinwheel section to space the pinwheels evenly and to keep them from sliding down.

   

For the cupcake toppers, I cut out small alligators and glued the toothpicks in between the layers of paper.   

Pinwheel Collage

My Tita (aunt) Ady created these beautiful floral arrangements for the baby shower.  She even used some branches right from my own backyard!

Michelle baked these delicious vanilla buttercream cupcakes and we finished them off with the alligator toppers!

Alligator Cupcake Toppers

My sister already had these small and large white paper lanterns from her wedding.  To add more navy, I painted the large lantern with navy acrylic paint and I glued navy ribbon to the smaller white lanterns.  

We wanted to incorporate the theme even in the drinks, so I made these beverage signs "Swamp Water" Sweet Tea and "Gator-ade" Lemonade.

Twisted Crepe Paper Backdrop 

To thank all our guests, Michelle baked some chevron sugar cookies and I created this fun sign to send them on their way!  

Party Favor Sign- "Before You Leave Take a Favor...See Ya Later Alligator!"

You can now order this alligator favor sign through my Etsy Store! ArtisticAnyaDesigns Etsy Shop

Click here to order on Etsy

Chevron Sugar Cookies

For the shower I HAD to color coordinate my outfit of course and my kids too! Look how cute my sister's little baby bump is!  I love my sister so much and hope she loved the shower as much as I enjoyed planning it for this special day! 

**Extra special thanks to Michelle and my Tita Ady for helping me pull all this together too!**

Since I'm brand new to the blogging world, stay tuned for more parties, crafts and DIY projects!  Thanks for stopping by! :)