seriously. i think i need shoulder surgery. i finished the stenciling about a week or so ago and i still don't have full range of motion in my right arm. i stenciled the main wall light blue on chocolate brown, the rest of the walls are solid chocolate.
anyway, this is our office. it's not completely finished yet, but i wanted to share my first stenciling project! it's sort of taken on a bit of a "bird" theme. i'm not big on theme rooms, but i've grown to adore little birdies for some reason (see avatar and detail shots below).
the calendar near the window and the bird painting on the stenciled wall have already swapped places. i tend to be constantly tweaking the details in my rooms. it's a disorder, i'm sure.
a little place for my son to work (color, cut, draw, paint etc.) while i work:
detail of the first bird painting i ever bought:
more birdies. these watch over my stuff:
this is an 07 calendar but it features vintage drawings of birds, eggs and nests. a little gallery in northern michigan sells these SAME vintage prints for $40 each. i'll use it as a calendar next year and then frame a few of my favorites:
i'm thinking about getting this guy to use as a doorstop:
thanks girls! i haven't really had any of my girlfriends over to see it yet, so i don't have much feedback on it other than my MIL's opinion (uh, whatever) i'm 100% pleased with how it turned out, although i am really concerned that my arm will never being normal again.
FP i was totally going for a wallpaper look, so YAY!
Hedvig i wish i could say that i had photography skillz, but i'm just a wanna-be. my camera suks, but i'm sure i just picked up some tricks from both art directing and styling home photoshoots in the past. i dunno. thanks for the compliment though.
squishy those little birdies are tealight holders from target. i bought them at least a year ago, but i've seen them as recently as a few months ago. you might be able to still get them. they were in the aisle with the candles.
twinkle and others that asked how i did it: my walls were already painted solid brown from 2 years ago. the color is actually called "potato peel" from the martha stewart collection. i bought the stencil from stencil-library.com. the pattern area of the stencil was about 12" x 13" so i had to do 126 repeats to complete the wall. i had some leftover paint from an adjacent room i painted (color is called "graph paper" from martha stewart @ sherwin williams) and thought it'd be perfect over top the brown. so that's what i used — no fancy stencil paint for me. i used a low tack spray adhesive (specifically made for stencils, found at michael's) on the backside of the stencil to tack it to the wall while i painted (literally tapped a small amount of the paint onto the wall through the cutout areas). i wanted it to have a really solid wallpaper look to it so went over each section twice letting the 1st coat dry for one minute. you use so little paint that it dries pretty fast. all in all, i'd say i have 40+ hours of work into that wall. if anyone is thinking of trying it, let me know. there were some unexpected things that happened and a few things i fumbled through along the way and i wasn't prepared for them since it was my first attempt, but i'd be happy to pass info along so you can be prepared with a "fix-it kit".
my next home and garden post will be: the kitchen reno that killed my 2006 shopping budget. stay tuned!