Wednesday, October 12, 2011

martha rocks my world.

martha stewart. who does not love her? i mean, yes we all hated her when she went to jail and all that.. but it seems like everyone has forgotten all about that because she has made a terrific comeback. i mean, martha taught me how to entertain for thanksgiving, gave me the perfect cookie recipes, showed me endless recipe, decor, and craft ideas... and now she's done it again. she has managed to make some of the cutest and most adorable craft stencils i have ever seen. so i totally bought them from michael's when they were on sale last week.

i liked these the best because some of the patterns reminded me of lace.






it came with 2 pages of lovely stencils. minus the butterflies... i don't know, it just seems weird to have insects on things i own.

so i bought these and 2 little bottles of craft paint and it was about $10. not too shabby. i knew where i was going to use them. i've had this lamp shade for about a year now that i've been meaning to do something with

see? kinda boring.


i thought of lots of different updates for it, but when i saw these stencils i knew i wanted to paint them on the shade. promblem = solved. so first i made little lint rollers out of loops of tape to make sure i got any cat hairs off the lamp so it wouldn't ruin my paint job. then i just kind of picked a starting point and taped the stencil to the shade

look how cute these things are! i am a sucker for anything this color blue...


i have been adding green into my living space lately, so i decided to use martha stewart's scottish highlands craft paint.



i liked the look of two colors overlapping so i used some paint i had already mixed myself using behr's harbor and martha stewart's picket fence.

the stenciling was super easy, obviously. the only thing i would do differently is keep some paper on hand to put under the other stencils not being used on the page, and along the edges. i find i am not the most patient or careful, so i made a couple mistakes by accidentally going over the edge or getting paint in the stencil i wasn't using.... oops. but other than that, easy as pie. if pie is easy.. i'm not sure what that saying is supposed to mean.


see? can you tell where i accidentally went a little over the edge there? like i said, oops.


still so cute though, right?


so i basically just kept adding stencils until i was satisfied. and i may have had to add at least one to cover up a big mistake i made.... but that's neither here nor there. : )



so i got it to this point and i liked it. and i thought it was finished. but once i put it on the lamp it seemed like i had left so much of the shade empty. the lesson here is, try out your stenciled project where it's gonna go before you clean everything up.. and put it away.. and wash out your brush.... i'm not saying that I did those things, i'm just saying make sure you don't. that's all. : )

i really like the look of the stencils on the edges like the pattern continues off the shade


so after getting all my stuff back out and painting on two more stencils i tried it out on the lamp and i really liked it this time.






i really like it. i love the pattern and fun it brought into the room. so so so super easy.

before





after





easy. cheap. fast. all words i like when it comes to doing a project. i seriously recommend these stencils. get yourself a 40% off any item coupon for michael's and go in and get some and stencil to your heart's content. "it's a good thing" - martha stewart. : )

5 comments:

  1. you have such an eye for these things--it looks great and flows perfectly with your room! :)

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  2. Very impressive Jessica! The colors and the stencil you chose (which does look like lace, i agree) are perfect and really gave the shade more life. Per the usual, this looks fan-tas-tic!

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  3. So cute! I love the colors you chose! And you always make me giggle. Always! Hugs friend! :)

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