Nursery over the weekend

Last week I painted a pattern in the nursery. I got the idea from a Pottery Barn nursery, but more on that later. To finish it off, I asked Keith to install a piece of chair rail on that wall. Over the last two days I have been spackling the nail holes and touching up the paint.


I started painting the closet shelf and clothing rod. It took 3 coats of paint to get it to look solid. I also painted over the wall where I did a test trial of the wall stencils.


We took an interesting trip to ikea.


Where I picked up these curtains for the nursery. I like how the pattern mimics the wall stencil.


Progress photo

How to Paint a Stenciled Wall

As I said before, I tested a small area in the farthest corner of the bedroom. It's a good thing I did. As you can see in the below picture, the paint begins to overlap looking all "yucky".

Also I made the mistake of using a graphite pencil. Instead, use a color pencil.

To get a smooth look, I painted one continuous "squiggle" and then went back and painted the other "squiggle". Yes, I'm full of techincal terms today!

So that when the stencil met from tip to tip, it look like one continuous intertwined pattern. The color looks a little darker in certain angles.

The above photo is the most accurate in color. I love how it looks! It's too bad my other photos make the wall look bumble bee yellow!

Then I just held the brush gently and keeping my wrist straight, I followed the stencil around. I painted 2 coats of the white metallic paint. It dried very quickly so I did the 2nd coat right away.

There you have it. Are you going to attemp this yourself?

How to Stencil a Wall

Before I started, I got my supplies ready. Here I have 2 bottles of paint: one in champagne and one in white. I also bought a pack of new brushes. I ended up using the 2nd one from the left for the whole project.

AC Moore had a huge assortment of colors! I love it!

Place the stencil on the wall. I started by eye-ballin' it. Then I checked it with a level. I used a tan colored color pencil to sketch my pattern, so that it would blend in better with the wall. Make a little mark on the left or right edge of the card stock to keep the stencil aligned in the vertical direction.

So it looks like this. Here, I made the mistake of using a mechanical pencil and the lead was way too dark and smeared the wall. So I went back with a damp paper towel and wiped the pencil away. It still left an outline so I didn't have to redraw it. Lesson learned. Use color pencil.

See how the lead pencil shows through. Then I tested the paint out by painting in the farthest lower corner of the room (away from the front door). It's a good thing I did since it turns out that I didn't like the champagne (too gold once it dried). Also, I found that keeping the brush strokes even was important. Don't overlap too often.

Painting next....

How to make a wall stencil

So I know you're all wondering how I did this?

First, I started by googling images of wall patterns and did little sketches on a piece of paper to get a feel for how fluid the stencil would be when I'm ready to paint. In other words, the easier it was to sketch and move my hand around, the easier it would be to paint too. When I was ready, I started by sketching one side on a piece of card stock and then folded it over, so that the stencil would be symmetrical.

Intentionally, I sketched the stencil a little shy of 5/8" wide because I knew my paint brush was 5/8" wide. While folded, cut the stencil out with an xacto knife. This is just the trial run so it doesn't matter if it's not perfect.

After I cut it out, I retraced it onto a new piece of card stock to use as my wall stencil. Make sure the top and bottom points on the stencil are exactly in the center and equal in width because you're going to put tip to bottom each time you trace the stencil onto the wall.

Carefully cut it out with the X-acto knife. I left 2 "notches" to hold the center from falling out. I should mention that it's important that when you retraced the stencil onto the new piece of card stock, be sure it's level to the top edge of the card stock. You can draw some lines from the corners of the stencil to help you line up the stencil when you're sketching it onto the wall. I left the additional 6" of card stock at the bottom of the stencil to help me use it as leverage when I'm moving the stencil around on the wall. Also, I can lean on it so that I don't smudge the wall.

How to trace the stencil onto the wall next...

What I have been up to...

If you're wondering why it's been so quiet, it's because I have been working on this. I was a little nervous about it first, but then it turned out fabulous! It only took me 6 hours and some creativity. Tutorial to come!