Hey there! Remember me, the girl who hasn’t posted in, oh, forever? Sorry about that, y’all. Yes, life had been crazy. No, that’s not really a good excuse. I really am sorry for all three of you who have missed me (ha).
Moving on, let’s talk walls. The craft studio walls, specifically. Apparently, I’m on an accent wall kick at the moment (see here), so I couldn’t possibly just paint the craft room walls a single color and leave it (oh, the horror of making my life simple, right?) No, I knew – I just KNEW – I wanted the far wall of the craft room to be an accent wall. So, I decided to paint it navy. This of course meant taping off trim, since such a dark color shows every friggin’ wavy line. Have I mentioned how much I LOATHE taping? If not, it’s alot – as in “I’d rather be cleaning my toilet – with a toothbrush” alot. Yeah.
Anyway, I painted the wall, and it looked like this:
Oooohhh….AAAhhhh….shiny, pristine, gorgeous navy wall – Bra-VO, past Sarah. We’re done right?
Darn that past Sarah, she’s never content. Apparently I drank the crazy Kool-aid that day, because I decided it needed more. I wanted something with movement, something quirky, something modern, something GOLD, dangit! So I turned where we all turn for inspiration, the internet. That’s where I found this:
It was quirky, it had movement, it was modern, it (could be) gold, and…it was cranes. Now, there is nothing inherently wrong with cranes, I just have no real desire to put them all over my walls. So I decided to design my own stencil (no problem, past Sarah said), cut out said stencil with my Silhouette Cameo (easy peasy, she said), and stencil it – perfectly aligned – on my very old, very cattywampus walls (I am beginning to lose faith in past Sarah’s judgment at this point). Did I mention that there’s a window on this wall? And that it isn’t completely level? Yeah – sometimes I amaze myself with how brilliant I am. Ugh.
Here’s the thing, though. Once I get an idea in my head, I’m kinda like a dog with a bone. I just can’t let it go. So I decided to try. Now, I have a particular love of elephants, so I decided to sub that in for the crane. I found an origami line drawing of an elephant online, and used Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator to turn it into something my Silhouette could cut. Here is the finished stencil (I used quilter’s plastic from Jo-Ann fabrics to cut it from). Y’all, at this point I was SO EXCITED. I couldn’t wait to try it on the wall. Like this. Ta-da!!!
And a close-up, because I’m nice that way…
It was right about this moment that I realized four important things:
1) it was going to take a LOT of math to make everything line up visually given the crooked walls and window – I am NOT a math person.
2) almost every remaining elephant on the wall was somehow going to be cut off by either the walls, ceiling, floor, or window frame.
3) My stencil didn’t want to bend around corners.
4) I didn’t want to cry.
So I decided to admit defeat, and go with something I can freehand (which is actually already done, so look for another post sometime around Tuesday – really, I promise).
So why am I even posting this? Why put my failure out on the internet for all to see? Well, to demonstrate that we all make mistakes, and sometimes DIY fails happen. But you know what? That’s okay because we learn from it. Plus, now I have a super cute elephant stencil that I already have great plans for. I think I’ll name him “Larry.”
Till next time,
Sarah
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