The Art of Re-Use.  Cut a large stencil from a roll of Brown Paper and Turn walls from a mess into elegance. 

Transforming a room from having BABY Alphabet Wallpaper into one having elegant stenciled bird and flora motifs was accomplished by using some paint, brown paper and a bit of creativity.  I bought a model home with 3 bedrooms, the decor based on having a nuclear family with 2 small children, hence BABY wallpaper.    Bedroom #2 had (note past tense) TOY Airplane Wallpaper, but that's another story.

In removing the BABY wallpaper I discovered it had been applied to the walls in this model home without the sheetrock first having been primed.  Little did I know how long it would take me to remove the wallpaper, bit by bit, and sometimes peeling off chunks of sheetrock right along with the abc's.  Patience is a virtue, and eventually I got it all off.  

I then painted over the gouged out surfaces with a textured paint.   You can see the white area has a mottled look from the textured paint; that was where that awful paper was pulled from - the blue paint below the chair rail just needed to be painted over.



After living with this look for a year, I gave the two twin beds to my daughter and all of a sudden had an empty room, so  I bought a gallon of Behr Creamy Nougat, and applied two coats of paint to the walls.



Then the fun part began as I designed a stencil, first drawing various elements on tracing paper.  You can see that I laid out the various drawings on top of square tiles on my kitchen floor (great measuring device by the way - TILES).


From this step, I taped the design together, and placed it on top of brown paper.  Then using carbon paper, traced that design onto the brown paper and cut out the design using an exacto knife.  I did have an olfa mat under the brown paper as I cut out the stencil.


This is what the design looked like after I painted thru the stencil on a long sheet of brown paper.



This was to make sure two repeats of the design would work well on the wall above the chair rail.  This is essential to make sure it will look right vertically and horizontally on the wall surface.



This is what the actual stencil looks like.  The paper roll is 24" wide and the length of the stencil is 36".


I painted the stencil itself with a durable house paint, then painted two coats of a polypropylene sealer — BOTH SIDES OF THE STENCIL.  Why?  Because for variation in design, I used both sides of the stencil by reversing it.



Prior to starting the stenciling process, I measured the area I wanted to cover, divided the width of the stencil into the length of the wall, and determined on the long wall, I would have 5 segments of design.  I started with the first design in the middle of the wall and worked out from there.



I used a slightly darker shade of stencil paint, and used a satin paint so it has a slight sheen against the flat paint on the wall. 

And now for the angel.




I found the angel and wanted to use it over the inside of the bedroom door.  I cut, sized and printed the design on two sheets of printer paper, taped them together, and soaked it in linseed oil.  It took 3 days to dry OUTSIDE, NOT inside because it smells.  After the design was dry, I cut the stencil — the paper has a divine feel to it.

The angel still needs a bit of work to finish her, and the room will have crown molding installed before I put a bed in.  I have fallen in love with this room - it is beautiful.  I will post more pictures when it is is finished.

I'm going to end with an homage to a tool I could not live without.  Being a single woman, the lightness of aluminum is a must.  I use my ladder to hang my art, hang curtains outside, put boxes high on shelves, and as a carrier for art scenes that I paint.

Ta da - my ladder.