Spots Before My Eyes

So as much as I love a bold statement and am crazy about how this Kelly green shouts out “LOOK AT ME” to you all, it still wasn’t enough.

I know, I know, to some of you it’s already too much but you also know me enough to say, yeah, she needs more.

Here’s what “More” looks like in my world.

RIGHT??  Such love for a wall I haven’t had since my shim wall which you can revisit here or from Apartment Therapy’s website under the heading: From woods to wood. (Yes, I did just shamelessly name drop).

How did I do this you ask? (If that’s not the question you have, leave a comment or …). It all started with finding the most beautiful wallpaper on Pinterest called Tanzania.

But, this beautiful wallpaper comes with a hefty price, if you can even access the ordering site.  Of course this just meant my cheap-o side (although I believe it’s not really a side but a QUALITY – yeah, that’s it) can figure out a different way with similar results.

I found  through Pinterest again of course, a blogger who used Royal Stencil’s cheetah stencil with a few modifications.  I loved how hers turned out so much so that I ordered my own the same day. Great customer service there too.

I don’t have a great deal of experience with stencils, the idea of following specific steps not regulated by moi seemed daunting, but really, it was super simple and I’m very happy with the results.  Here’s how it happened:

Here is the glorious stencil. It’s big, sturdy and fairly easy to manouever.   I read the instructions they send along with all kinds of tips for the best results.  I used left over black paint, lots of paper towel and about 3 sponge rollers.  I wished I had more.   I don’t know whether I’d recommend you use dollar store rollers or good quality ones since I found both had the same issues but maybe the better one lasted a little longer.  Once you get going, and the roller gets used a bit, the foam tends to expand due to the paint filling it and from getting wet in general.  Once it expands, it no longer wants to stay on the handle.  ANNOYing.  So, if you decide to try stenciling on a large scale like me, take heed.

 

Someone suggested covering the paint tray with a plastic bag for easy clean up, I found this dumb.  First the roller sticks to the bag and is hard to pull off and due to this paint splatters where it shouldn’t.  Just saying.

You can see by how pale the black is on the stencil that you really do use very little paint.  It’s a cool effect to be darker on some spots, lighter in others.  Makes it more interesting.  Also since you use less paint, it dries on the wall and stencil quicker so you can move the stencil over without too much time wasting in between.  Another tip someone had was to invest in two stencils since they do get quite coated and heavy with the paint and can be hard to use without smearing or leaking underneath.

In my case it isn’t too intricate of a pattern with lots of cuts so I did alright for the one wall.  It would be nice to have a clean slate about halfway through if you were doing a larger space.  Oh please please ignore the shots where it highlights my popcorn ceiling.  Oh the tragedy of it all.  One day, popcorn, one day….

Continue to move to the side or up and down, whichever way you like with this pattern.  Since the TV is wall mounted and had a bracket, I just went back in later and faked some cheetah spots in the empty spaces.   I also added spots along the edges and in between the stenciled spots to make it more custom and not so perfectly repeated.

  

As you can see it was far from a clean and perfect result, but if you have the base colour to touch it up with you are laughing.  Overall, there wasn’t too much correction afterward…or is there??  You can’t see BEHIND things, you know. Not even moms with the eyes at the back of their heads thingy.

And there you have it, another project for a few dollars only.  The stencil was $43.00 Americano  equaling around $50.00 Canadian. Worth it?  Every penny, I think.