Aside from having a ton of stuffed animals, Graham also has a lot of hats – baseball hats, beanies, winter hats, fedoras. We didn’t have any sort of organization system, so they typically ended up all over the house. I knew I wanted something to match his room (check out his dinosaur themed room), but was having trouble finding exactly what I wanted. When I was searching on Target, I saw this cute T-Rex wall hook. While I did like it, it was smaller than what I was looking for and I wasn’t sure I liked the colors.
Another Toddler Room DIY
Eric and I have done plenty of projects for his room and I decided to do another one! This was a quick and inexpensive project. We actually had a lot of what I needed already. We had some wood left over from a previous project and it was the perfect size. I also found some left over stain (it isn’t the same color as the other stuff in his room, but it’s not noticeable). I used the color Early American for this project.
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While I was staining the wood, Eric was in charge of cutting the dinosaurs in half. He found the easiest thing to do was cut them in half with a hand saw. I’m sure there is probably an easier and safer way to do it, but it worked for us!
Once all the dinosaurs were cut in half, I filled them with Loctite TITE FOAM Insulating Foam Sealant. It did start to explode out as it dried, but it fell off as I lifted them up. I set the foam end down onto the tarp to flatten the left over and quickly lifted it back up so it did not stick to the tarp. You can also cut the foam off once it is fully dry. The foam is a totally optional step. I added it to give more surface area to add wood glue.
Graham helped me set them out once the foam was dry so we could spray paint them. Again, this step is optional, but I wasn’t happy with the colors of the dinosaurs and felt their original colors would cheapen the look of my hat rack. We had some green spray paint in our garage already, and I knew the color would go perfectly in his room.
Once the dinosaurs were fully dried, I used a measuring tape to help with placement. Once I was happy with the placement, I used chalk to mark where each dinosaur was going to be glued on the board.
I covered the foam side of each dinosaur with a small amount of wood glue, making sure to cover a small part of the foam, as well as, the plastic edge of the dinosaur body. I used a wet cloth to remove any wood glue that seeped out after pressing the dinosaur to the wood.
When the glue was dry, we added some hooks to the back so we could easily hang it.
Final Result
I love the way it turned out, and think it is the perfect addition to his room and a great way to store his many hats.
