Friday Reveal: Bedroom Stencils

My bedroom has sorely been in need of some color or visual interest on the walls. It's also been in desperate need of beautiful matching lamps to sit on those new nightstands.


This past weekend, I solved both with a trip to Pier One (for the Serena Accent Lamps) and a crafty easy DIY project to liven up the space!

Here's the before:

And here's the AFTER:

So how does she do it?
She does it cheaply and quickly, and you can too.

DIY Contact Paper Stencils

Supplies:

- Roll of contact paper, any color (I used white)

- 1/4 quart of paint in your color choice (This is Dutch Boy Durham Beige in Flat finish)

- Foam brush

- Scissors

- Pencil or pen

- X-acto knife

- Drop cloths or other means of covering your floors and other objects

Directions:

Lay out your contact paper and draw your design. I used my bedspread as inspiration and drew larger versions of elements from it to tie the whole room together. As you draw, decide which places you'd like your paint to appear and make sure you've cut those spaces OUT using a scissor x-acto knife. Be careful to keep your designs simple or you won't be able to keep the stencil from sticking to itself once you remove it from the protective backing of the contact paper.

Once you have your design and you've cut out the spaces where you'd like the paint to appear, pull the remnants of the contact paper away from the protective backing (so you've made yourself a giant sticker). Place said giant sticker on the wall and prepare for painting.

Smooth your hand over your stencil as you adhere it to your wall. Do not worry, it will not take paint off your walls (at least it didn't at all with mine). Use a foam brush to paint on top of the stencil and fill in all your spaces.

Immediately pull the contact paper stencil away from the wall and you'll have a gorgeous, crisp design ready to go. If your stencil isn't too wet at this point, you can do what I did and reuse it on another part of the wall. Tip: You can also use the remnants from the original stencil (the stuff you cut out to make a space for the paint) to make an inverse design. I did this and alternated on each wall.

If you are wary of free-handing your own stencils, you could always trace a design onto contact paper using carbon paper.

This whole project took about 2 hours and cost about $5 worth of paint + contact paper. I am incredibly pleased with the results and even more happy because I won't have to paint all that much back when I move out!

Now, all I need is curtains. Stay tuned for the further evolution of Annie's bedroom makeover.

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