Capturing Joy with Kristen Duke

Have you seen the wall stencil rage around the blogosphere?  I’ve been eyeing varying stencil designs for quite a while, and was THRILLED to get my hands on a Cutting Edge stencil. I can’t reveal to you the entire space yet, but I’ve been working on my girls room to make it fancy (if you remember, they were top 10 contenders for a room makeover from Vintage Revivals last fall).  I’ve brainstormed ideas with my oldest daughter, and we thought that a purple stencil on the ceiling would be pretty darn fancy. She wanted something floral, and I liked the more modern geometric shapes, and the Lily Scroll stencil that we chose is a mixture of both. {Final Room Reveal link at the end of this post}

I’d read and heard that the stenciling process has a bit of a learning curve, and to try something simple first. Yeah, well, I decided I didn’t need to listen to all that mumbo jumbo and tackled a project that I thought would be simple enough.

Cutting Edge Designs does a great job with their stencils. What I LOVE is that most are interlocking, meaning they line up with each other to make the overall design seamless. But I’ll admit, tackling the ceiling is TRICKY!  It’s simple gravity, people. Something that didn’t happen to run through my brain. I enlisted the help of my fabulous friend, Kati, for this project. We found that spraying the stencil with sticky adhesive (Elmer’s spray is about $7 at Hobby Lobby) and letting it dry for just a minute or two, then putting it on the ceiling was best. We started with tape, then found it wasn’t needed as much as the tackiness from the spray.

The tutorials with the stencil, the video, and the site all emphasize not using too much paint. It is very tempting to do that though, get it done quicker, right? But no, it requires a little bit of patience–of which Kati has more than me. But doesn’t the ceiling look FAB-U-LOUS?!? I am in love with it!!!

Here is a slight little sneak peek of the ceiling with the wall (that I took with my phone).

One more shot just for good measure:

Watch this quick video to see how the stenciling is done:

Check out the final product with Girls Fancy Room Makeover Reveal!