Furniture Update with Stencil

I had this piece of furniture for a long time, and it needed a little update. I painted it a brown color a while back, and one day I walked by and had this idea to add some hydrangea's to the doors. I already had the stencils and paint. There are some many choices out there. You can go to the craft store and use a coupon and pick up a design that you like!

First, you want to make sure your surface is clean and free from dust. Choose your design and get your paints ready. I use a tint, but you can use any craft paint or stencil paint.

The idea is to really remove as much of the paint as you can from your brush. The best way to do this is with a cotton rag. Pour a small amount of paint to a plate. Gently dip the tip of your stencil brush into the paint. A stencil brush works best just because of the stiffness of the bristles

and it keeps it's shape.

Here is what my rag looks like as I am removing paint from the brush...this could almost be art in itself! :~)

After you are sure that you have removed most of the paint, I test it out on my wrist. Yes, I said wrist. This is just one last test to make sure that the paint is removed.

The point here is that we are just "floating" in the color. This is different than the traditionally way to stencil.

Here you see the stencil up. For some reason at the time I did not have blue tape. A girls gotta do what a girls gotta do! Anyways, start from the edge of the design. You want to "hug" you the opening of the stencil. Do not stamp! I make a gentle figure eight when I stencil. Going from the outside to the inside of the design. Remember that a lot of your color is off the brush. You can get a much softer

look with the technique.

For the top of my door, I did not want the whole flower, so I taped off what I did not want. Again, hug and swirl that color in. This gives you a chance to add other

colors within the design.

Here is what the finished flower looks like. I did use a metallic paint on the flower, so it's hard to get a good picture of it.

Again, it's better in person. There are different shades of green on the leaf and different colors on the petals....just hard to get all of that with the camera. There are a million places that you could do this. Headboards, cupboards, tables, all kinds of possibilities!