I’ve recently become very fond of painting with stencils! The Type-A perfectionist side of me that loves striping and plaids- enjoys the same kind of precise repetitive work. And- they look amazing! Stencils afford you the ability to create just about any intricate pattern in an endless array of color combinations- something you simply can’t get with wallpaper. Word of warning though- anyone trying to sell you a stencil kit will tell you ( and show you ) how easy it is… but in fact, they are not for the faint of heart. This recent powder room ( below ) took me close to 20 hours to complete- but the result looks like a million bucks! So keep your vacation days and leave this tedious work to me– I LOVE doing it!!!
Now, onto this dining room:
Sure, it’s faster than hand-painting this bad boy- but stenciling requires effort to perfectly align the design both horizontally and vertically. Otherwise, your pattern can get WAY off track! In addition, the right amount of paint must be applied with light pressure or the paint runs and causes a mess. The stencils eventually fill with paint and must be cleaned- which I have to admit- I like peeling off the paint- but still, cleaning it can take an hour or more. This particular one soaked for 45 minutes and then I carefully scraped off the soft paint with a credit card for another 45 minutes. You can see in this photo below that I had to individually stencil on each ‘loop’ of this ornate dining room design. The other difficult part is the corners- often I had to hand-paint the corners to get the pattern to line up perfectly.
This next nursery project kinda plays an optical illusion on you. If you didn’t see the blue on the other walls, you’d think the blue pattern was the stencil, when in fact, it’s the white paint that was applied over top. Either way it goes, it looks great!
I really like this next pattern- the Marrakech Trellis. I’ve done this several times by hand, but really liked how the stencil version of this turned out as well. I used metallic silvers on a light beige paint to create the desired effect.
And finally, I had a lot of fun creating this custom design on a stairwell ( below ) using a medallion stencil- the Prosperity Mandala. I used the same stencil to create 3 distinctly different medallions and alternated the paint colors for even more of a variation. The random layout makes this pattern super fun!
Lastly, I gotta give a shout out to Cutting Edge Stencils and Royal Design Studios. Both companies make incredible quality products and have a HUGE selection to chose from. Check them out online and when you’re ready to get started, give me a call- pretty please!