Stenciling. Aka: What In the World Was I Thinking?

I got a wild hair to stencil our half bath.  Just to mix it up.  I think I started this project three or four months ago.  The mess in our bathroom has been ridiculous.  The whole stenciling thing didn't seem hard.  I ordered the stencil online, got it in the mail, and went to work.  It was more tedious than I thought.  And messier.  It's not for the faint of heart.

I am pleased with the results though.  Not too shabby and definitely more fun than plain beige walls.

 If you do decide to take the plunge and ignore my warnings, here are some tips that helped me out along the way:

1.)  Find the right brush.  I used a few little brush art brushes that I already owned but I'm sure there is a better one that I could have used.  I went through several and found that the stiffer the better.

2.)  Load the paint on the brush and use a paper towel to get most of the paint off by swirling the brush around in circular motions.  If you skip this step, your paint will go on too thick and run under the stencil.  I did this and still had some paint runnage.  Beware.

3.)  Hold that stencil down baby!  Another trick to keep the paint from seeping under the stencil.

 4.)  I found, through trial and error, the neatest method to be brushing from the outside edge of the stencil to the inside.  Again, keeps the pattern nice and neat.

I had to go back over everything and do some hand touching up.  We re-did our artwork for the walls too.  I bought frames for cheep at Michael's and painted them all this goldish-silver color to make them look uniform and more expensive.  We also made the subway signs above the toilet by followimg this tutorial.  It was super easy.

Now I want to live in our bathroom.