Stencil

So I decided to try my hand at wall stencils... Love the look, don't love the price... $60 for a stencil.... However let me just say, that after I started in on my DIY wall stencil, I now understand the price, and might invest in one.

laylagrace.com

I found this pillow, and loved the pattern, I liked that there are two shapes in one.

So I saved the picture on my iPad. Used my app, ArtRage, enlarged the pillow, and snapped a screen shot of the pillow pattern...

Then I measured my walls, there is not a lot of room in between my crown moulding and marble tile wainscot. Which will hopefully make for and easier painty job.

After measuring the wall, I picked the scale I wanted for the design, and sized the picture to what I needed.... Then came the super sophisticated iPad way of tracing.... I slapped my piece of paper on top of my screen and traced it.... Oh to have an HP Wireless printer.... All of these champagne problems...

The real problem was I was nervous that I didn't trace it exactly even, or that the image because it came from a pillow would be slightly skewed, which would end up throwing off the whole wall... So I measured one "corner" of the stencil, and then traced it four times.... Flipping it over and turning it upside down to get perfect proportion.

I then took that tracing and made a few more cut outs to see if my proportion was on.... It was...

Then I bought a cardboard box from Home Depot, for $1... I wanted something thick, so the paint wouldn't warp it, but something I could cut through with an exacto knife...

This is where I turned it over to Drew.... My brain doesn't work the way his does.... He's a gosh darn genius... He squared up the cardboard using the 1,3,5 method.... Whaaaaaaa? Then measured my stencil, and spaced them out evenly and traced them all for me... I got out the exacto knife and cut out his tracing...

Well I'll give you a spoiler alert... Cardboard was crap.... Too thick, and we would have had to press the roller too hard to get the foam roller to get it to paint the wall... So we made a trip to the Hobby Lobby to buy some stencil paper....
Part deux.... To... Be.... Continued....