Stenciling Our Dining Room with a Cutting Edge Stencil

**Update: The Winner for the GIVEAWAY has been chosen! It was comment #2. The winner was picked using Random.org, and has been emailed. Thank you all for entering!

Oh yeah! My blood, sweat, and tears went into making this wall look amazing.


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I honestly thought I’d never bee done. And it’s not even because using the stencil was hard, it’s because painting while my kids were home was incredibly hard. I would start painting with the stencil and they would need me to hold them, or they’d try and sit in my lap, or they would try to grab the roller and paint themselves. But it’s finally done, and I LOVE  it!
Cutting Edge Stencils was kind enough to let me choose a stencil from there store, and after browsing for hours on their site, I finally picked the Rabat AllOver Stencil in large scale.  I had never stenciled a whole wall before but after watching some of the videos on the Cutting Edge site, and reading the instructions, I felt pretty confident that I could tackle doing a whole wall.
The directions they send along with the stencils, are very detailed and clear, but if you’re like me, then watching the videos makes everything so easy.


This is what the dining room looked like before painting. The walls were a very light beige or khaki color.
Before I started stenciling, I cleared everything away from the wall, and painted it with 2 coats of an Ultra White in semi-gloss. I also painted our ceiling white too. (I know, I am crazy to start this project 2 weeks before Christmas.)
After painting everything, I got to bust out my new stencil!

Cutting Edge Stencils also sent me a roller and a foam roller brush. And their easy slip on level.

I used painters tape to hold the stencil onto the wall, which also made it easy to reposition, and move around.

I used a plastic paint tray liner since I didn’t have any paper or Styrofoam plates around. I just poured a little paint at a time and made sure to roll off the excess, before rolling over the stencil on the wall.


I rolled a light coat of paint over the entire stencil, and pulled the stencil away to make sure it wasn’t bleeding through.  I had to do two coats of paint over each stencil to get the coverage I needed. Instead of waiting for each coat to dry though, I used my blow dryer to dry each section so I could continue painting faster. And it really did make it faster. I only had to use the blow dryer for about 30 seconds before paint was dry enough to do a second coat.

In between coats, I just taped my stencil to the wall near by. I was going to paint the whole dining room and kitchen afterward, so it didn’t matter to me if the stencil got any paint on the wall.

Progress!

And yesterday I finally finished!!

The wall looks so pretty now, and gives such character to our dining room. It was seriously easy to stencil, it just took a long time since I chose such a large wall to do. (Oh yeah, and my kids go a little nuts when I don’t give them constant attention.) 
I love the color I chose too. It’s Alpaca Yarn from Dutch Boy. It’s kind of like a muddy, gray brown. In some light it looks brown, and in others it looks gray. But it goes great with accent colors I have been using…

Cutting Edge Stencils was also nice enough to let me host a giveaway for them! So you guys will get a chance to create a fabulous stenciled wall in your home too! But if you’re not up for doing a whole wall like I did, then you don’t have to worry, because Cutting Edge has so many different stencils in their online store, they even have craft size stencils, for doing projects like pillows, or prints.

GIVEAWAY
This giveaway is for one stencil of any value up to $50!
***PLEASE LEAVE YOUR EMAIL ADDRESS IN THE COMMENT(S) OR MAKE SURE YOUR EMAIL ADDRESS IS CONNECTED TO YOUR USER PROFILE!!
HOW TO ENTER:
1. Go to the Cutting Edge Stencils site and tell me which stencil you would like to have if you won. (1 entry)
2. Like Cutting Edge Stencils on Facebook, and leave me a comment here telling me you liked them. (1 entry)
3. Share about this giveaway on Facebook, or Twitter, or Google+, and leave me a comment telling me that you shared. Please include the link from where you shared. (1 entry for each, up to 3 entries)
The giveaway starts today, December 22, 2011 and ends December 29, 2011 at 11:59pm. The winner will be chosen using random.org, and will be announced/contacted on Friday, December 30, 2011. The winner will have 48 hours to claim their prize or a new winner will be chosen.

Disclosure: I received product from Cutting Edge Stencils for the purpose of giving a review. The experience and opinions are honest and completely my own.

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