Decor tips: stenciling
Let’s talk about stenciling. It’s been around for centuries and is one of the easiest and least expensive ways to bring color, pattern and personality to any space in your home. Start small with something easy like some curtains or a chair and work your way up to a wall or floor. Play with color and shapes to reinvent that room you have been itching to tackle. Coordinate details throughout your home and use new themes to keep things fresh. Keep it simple with precut stencils, or get creative and make your own template from items around the house like a ruler, stickers or painter’s tape.
Here are some ideas followed by easy instructions on how to achieve them:
Full Circle – Let’s kick off our list with some simple circles. Making a hip headboard for your bed can be done with some easy circle stencils or stickers. Roll some color over it that accents your room or go off that beaten path and make it pop. If you’re feeling really wild, use anything that represents a circle shape: logs, clocks, yarn art or even PVC pipes!
Wall-To-Wall – Any boring wall that needs a quick update can be tackled with a color of your choice and some painter’s tape. Using some classic stripes can open up the space and improve your room-to-room flow. Give classic stripes an unexpected spin by spacing out random width horizontal stripes at varied intervals to entice the walls.
Pillows – Colorful decorative bands, painted with fabric paint, give store-bought pillows custom detail. Tape off and paint a contrasting band, let dry and stencil a design on top. Or tape off a band, line up a unique design, bisect them with a strip of painter’s tape, roll on paint, then peel off the tape to reveal the design.
Cut a Rug – Have an old rug with some stains on it that you are planning to throw out? Paint it and turn it into a fresh floor covering instead. Use a ruler and some painter’s tape and make a pattern of your choice. Don’t worry if it isn’t perfect. Quirks will add character to the room.
Boxed In – Find a chest at your local second-hand store or flea market and give it a makeover. Add a glossy white paint outline and keep the nice wood exposed. Using some painter’s tape, stencils or free hand (if you’re feeling brave) you can create a design that is simple yet noticeable.
Stencils work with any style, so go modern with circles and zigzags, traditional with Old World scrolls, country with humming and vines, or artsy with stripes. The whole house is your canvas, so pick some patterns and get to work!
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