“You’re Going to Paint Weird Stuff on All of Our Walls!”

How you doin’?

That’s right, I’m talking to you, you sexy stenciled wall!

Frames still aren’t filled…

You guys, I stenciled my first wall. It was adventurous, tedious, hard to convince the hubby, and laborious.

And OH SO WORTH IT.

Our bedroom was in need of some pizzazz. There was nothing wrong with it, but nothing exciting about it either. This room was very low on my favorite room scale, and now it ranks at the top!

Going shopping for fun wall decorations was just not in the budget so I needed something free that preferably packed a big punch!

This is how things happen ‘round here…

Friday night was a fun night out at our first FSU Baseball game of the season. Our friends invited us to their Suite so we gladly joined them and enjoyed watching our Noles kick some GT booty!

 

Good times with wonderful people!

I tell you that only because it was a normal night and I had zero thoughts of stenciling on the brain...

Then, Saturday morning we woke up, I’m lying in bed, the clouds are rolling in as well as thunder, and the weather predicts nastiness all weekend.

This is when the ‘ol wheel starts turning.

And all the sudden it goes PING! Must stencil wall. Must stencil wall immediately.

Starts googling stenciled walls. Starts googling free stencils. Starts thinking this is going to happen. Starts thinking of the best approach to convince David.

Me: Hey Bookie…umm…umm…you see that wall over there? Doesn’t it need something? To make it pretttty?

David: No, that wall is just fine as is. Look at how nice it is!

That wall is boring! And I can’t just go buy all new stuff so I was thiiiiinking…thatitwouldlookreallycoolifIstenciledit! (Said in the Bob-had-a-baby-it’s-a-boy-commercial, you know to save minutes on the phone)…it’d be 100% free because I have everything!!

(Shows him stenciled wall above from Jones Design Company)

NOOOO Tamara, that looks like wallpaper, I don’t like it! No, the answer is no, absolutely not, NO.

Wahhhhhh! Ppppllleaseeee let me! Why do you care?! Let me do it if it makes me happy!

You got your black striped wall! And I didn’t want that! You’re going to do weird stuff to every single wall in this house!

Pouty face.

Well, I’m doing it. I should just beg for forgiveness instead of ask for permission!

Tamara, if you paint that wall you’re in big trouble.

But it’s going to look so pretty when it’s done!!

No, this is my house too and I don’t like it.

Well while you think about changing your mind I’m going to cut my stencil!

1 hour later…I show the puppy dogs my stencil and tell them it’s going to look so pretty!

David: What is that?

Me: My stencil! Isn’t it neat?

I don’t know why you wasted your time making that cause you’re not touching that wall.

Me using my whiney voice: Daaaaavvviiiiiddddd pllllleeeaassseeeee………..

Defeated David: Fine, do what you want. Now stop bothering me! HaHa

SUCCESS. I won, but this one was the toughest I’ve had to work yet for hubby approval! Sheesh!

You’d think I’m asking to put white planked walls around the fireplace or something! It’s on my wishlist ;-)

So, long drawn out morning later, I’m in business!

I followed Emily’s tutorial. Her room rocks! She also has the template available for free download on her site.

I gathered my supplies, all already on hand. Paint wise I used not even half of a quart.

White paint, craft brush, pencil, stencil and don’t forget, you’ll need a large supply of patience! Mine almost ran out but I had some on reserve.

Sidenote: I keep calling this a stencil, but since I didn’t actually stencil a cutout, I don’t know if this is considered one? Regardless, I was tracing and using a template so that’s what I’m calling it. Sorry if that’s not the technical term.

To make the stencil/template/whatever it’s called, I printed out her template, cut it out with an xacto knife, then cut it out of foam board to make it sturdy. You can use cardboard too.

 

 

After posting the following picture to Instagram/Facebook, I was committed. No turning back now!

Then, I got to tracing. I started at the top left corner and went down vertically. Repeat 800 million times.

Remi: “There she goes again..what’s she changing in my room now…”

My lens has a mark on it that I can’t seem to get off…

Emily has a great tutorial for the tracing/filling in part.

It was easy, although oh-so-tedious. I tried to level the stencil the first couple times and then that got annoying so I eye balled the rest of it.

I fudged a lot of places. In fact it looked awful in several spots where things didn’t line up nicely. However, when I went back with paint I was able to make things right. It’s not perfect by any means, but luckily from far away it looks great.

The pencil part took me the whole day, and I got started painting around 7 or so Saturday evening. I think. I’d lost track at that point.

I started painting behind where the bed would be hiding it so I could perfect my technique. I started with a paintbrush that was a little too wispy. I did all behind the bed with it and stopped painting around 1 am to hit the sack.

The next morning I told David that my free project was going to turn into a $3 project because I needed to purchase a round tipped paint brush. I went to Wal Mart and Target and found the perfect one in the kid’s art supply section at Target.

I painted and painted and painted. And went to bed with about a 5x3 foot area left. I wanted to finish that little area so bad but I was spent. At that point I’d spent the last several hours on the ladder and my legs were going numb and my arm hurt. Beauty (on the wall) is pain right? I definitely didn’t want to fall off the ladder unconscious. The ladder would totally have scuffed up my beautiful wall on it’s way down!

My helpers and marathon RH episodes on Bravo helped pass the time.

Hims so cute!

I finally finished tonight. I am IN LOVE.

I don’t plan on stenciling anything again. At least not at that scale. I have no idea how anyone could do this to a whole room and keep their sanity.

Here’s one more looksy.

What do you think? Feeling adventurous to do painted wallpaper on something of your own?