What Did You Learn Today?

During my daily blog browsing, I've come across some really cute crafts, upcycling, and remodeling that involves stencils. Whether it's damask, chevron, quatrefoil or the Moroccan stencil I used, you can't deny - it's cute.

Now, if you'll remember this post, where I discuss how I bought this tray and mod podged the paper on the inside. Honestly I wasn't that thrilled with the finished product.

So then it hit me...why not stencil the bottom?! I already had the paint, brushes and product - no money spent! DONE!

Then I got started...

And this is what I learned:

• If you're going to use such a small stencil...maybe go ahead and purchase the quality stencil or vinyl. Because paper...sucks.


• I also learned I lose patience cutting out stencils, over...and over...and over again.


• I also learned that it would have been nice if I had a fine tipped paintbrush.

I'm not going to pretend that this came out perfectly...it didn't. So for all of those "perfectionists" out there that stumbled upon this blog today - you might want to look away. It's not uniform, the lines aren't crisp and I don't care that much because most of the mistakes are hidden by vases and such.

I give you:

My Attempt At Stenciling

or "My little centerpiece redo."

We begin with the essentials:

About 4 paintbrushes, a fine tipped paintbrush (I didn't have one, but it would have been nice), paint of your choice, a chilled beverage and a movie.

My movie choice was "Morning Glory."

Next came a dilemma. To peel or not to peel. Apparently I'm a little mod podge crazy and that paper is on there like cement. So after multiple failed attempts at trying to just pick at the corner...it was decided to just leave the freaking paper on there. So next came painting... And some more painting... Finally it was covered, but it took a lot more paint than I thought it would. Next came the stencil...the dreaded stencil. I found a great Moroccan stencil online. And then my printer decided to forget how to connect. So plan B was to trace it off of the laptop screen. Yes, you read that right. I ended up having to trace it multiple times because the paper was so flimsy and was even worse after it was painted on. Also - I guess I didn't really think it through...so I not only had to cut out the smallest, intricate lines inside the stencil, but I had to cut out and tape the inside as well. Again - this is just regular paper, so yes, it flipped up, and yes it wasn't that great of a stencil. Here it is after applying the color...as you can see I've already smudged color on the sides... After peeling the paper off, you can see how a quality stencil or vinyl would have been the easy way to go... Finally after cutting out more stencils I decided to just cut out the inside shape and tape them in place instead. It was still just as time consuming, but it was much less frustrating.

Another helpful tip: IF you're going to try this in paper...use a different color paper than the background of what you're working on. You could make (multiple) mistakes.

I learned that if I waited for the paint to dry completely, I ended up peeling paper off and leaving a lot of it behind - so I peeled off the pieces when it was almost dry.

Flimsy paper and poor planning left this hot mess:

But after retouching with some white paint (where that fine tipped paint brush would have been really helpful)...and if you blur your eyes a little - it looks good! It helps to cover up the worst of the misshapen stenciling with the rest of the centerpiece. It's a small start, but I like the pattern. And the best part: since I had all the essentials - it was free! I'm going to be adding more blues and patterns to my living area. So check back to see a canvas frame I'm going to work on and pillow purchases!

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