While They Snooze: Easy Way to Update Old Decor with Paint

9.16.2014

Easy Way to Update Old Decor with Paint

This is a sponsored post on behalf of Plaid and FolkArt Paint and Stencils. All opinions are my own.

Ughhhh. I'm in a funk again. A house-decorating, ready-to-move-on funk. Can you tell? We moved into this house two years ago with the plan being to build our new forever home and get outta here as soon as possible. It has always been temporary, but I still made an effort to make it feel like ours at the beginning. However, now that we're nearing the home stretch, and the tiniest glimmer of light is starting to shine through that tunnel, finding motivation to do anything with this place is almost impossible. The master bedroom has been my pain point lately. I really want to redo it but it's really hard to spend money on a room when you know you're moving in less than a year (7 months if we're lucky). In an effort to lift my funk and start the bedroom transformation, I started simply and updated a vase using FolkArt Stencils & Paints.

This vase has been in our bedroom/bathroom for years now. It's not all that terrible as-is but it's rather earthy for my current taste. It looked fabulous I tell you back in 2006 when pea soup green and beige were all the hotness. Unfortunately, it just doesn't jive with the navy blue, teal, gray, gold glam vision in my head of our future bedroom. Time to transform.

Supplies:

Old Vase
Spray Paint
FolkArt Stencils (available at Michael's)
FolkArt Stencil Creme (available at Michael's)
FolkArt Stencil Adhesive (available at Michael's)
Paint Brush
Metallic Marker or paint

Step 1:

First I spray painted my vase to make the entire thing a dusty navy color.

Step 2:

Next, I applied FolkArt Stencil Adhesive to the back of a flower stencil. While the flowers were cute, I really loved how the leaves looked more like feathers to me so I focused on them. And since it's reusable, the flowers may end up in a project for my daughter's room one day.

I applied the glue just around the leaves and waited a few minutes for it to get tacky.

Then I stuck the stencil right to the vase. It held really well and was easy to reposition when I was figuring out where I wanted my "feathers".

Step 3:

Paint. The FolkArt Stencil Creme is oil based which I found both good and bad. Its really easy to blend and mix which gave me some nice effects. It also dries really slowly so it was a snap to wipe off if I got a smudge or something. On the other hand, the fact that the paint stayed wet so long made it hard to reposition the stencil and add more "feathers" over the ones I just painted. I had to be really careful but if you don't reposition the stencil at all, it's easy peasy.

I used a mix of blue, white, and yellow with a really stiff brush. I also blended on a paper plate before I painted on the vase.

And it looked like this when all 3 were done. Nice and crisp thanks to the adhesive.

Step 4:
Embellish with metallics. I used a copper and silver Sharpie to add to the design but you could also use paint or even another stencil. I just love the way metallic anything looks on navy. Brass or copper studs would look really nice too.

And tada! It might be a small thing, but it's a step in the right direction. Besides helping to move my bedroom from beige and green blah, I've also reused something I already had. You know I puffy heart recycling and cheap. :) I just might have the slightest urge to redo the headboard now. I said might.