I'm Frugal Friday-ing!

There's an awful lot of backstory to this post, a refresher in Geometry, and an attempt at a tutorial.

As a rule, I'm not very creative.

Meaning, I like to create and craft stuff, but I'm more of a copier than a designer.  I've been poking around The Shabby Nest's Frugal Friday for a month or so, and I'm not sure if that's a good or a bad thing.  A good thing because hello, there are some innovative and talented comfy home decorators out there. And bad, because I'm not one of them.

But I'm pretty sure I've hit the jackpot here.  

Click below if you just really love it when I go on and on and ON about how I came up with this decorating triumph.  My spiritual gift is the making of a long story EVEN LONGER.

Blanket The Wall


Shortly after we moved in, I was *gasp* actually trying to take a nap, and I woke up with a fabulous idea for Pinky's bedroom.  I was struggling to think of a way to decorate above her crib following these criteria:

1) without hanging anything on nails/screws for safety reasons
2) avoid using vinyl decals which I love, but I'm pretty sure she's gonna be a picker like Zesty ...
3) ... but still having her initial on the wall because that's just PRECIOUS.

And then it hit me ... the apple blanket that I am basing her decor around has a back panel with pink and green argyle, with a small accent chocolate brown dot between the diamonds.

Why not replicate that on the wall?  WHY IN THE WORLD NOT?!?!?!  Lowe's and Home Depot have sample paint sizes, along with lots of "oops" paint, and it wouldn't have to be the identical shade to be an incredible alternative to an actual piece of art.  I could see myself doing a decent size painting on the wall for around $20.

Then I thought wouldn't this be cute in Zesty's room?

YES IT WOULD!

To be more classic and long-lasting, I went with royal blue (to match his personalized Mickey Mouse blanket) and the same green that I used in Pinky's room for a preppy boy pattern.  I have not yet bought their first initials, nor dotted the points with brown (white for Z's room), but that will come in time.

I used to be afraid of paint, but it's our house - I want to enjoy every nook and cranny of it.  And, if and when we or the babies decide it's time to move on from this cool painting on the wall, I can easily paint over it.

Here's how I did it (and pictures!)
Why, I simply cut out diamond-shaped stencils from blank stencils I bought at WalMart, taped them to the wall, and painted.  Case closed.





hahahaha! you fell for it!  Only one part of that sentence is true ... there was no "simple" to the cutting out of the diamond-shaped stencil.  I did buy blank stencils at WalMart.

First I had to Google for a diamond shape clip art.  I found out that a diamond is actually a rhombus. A rhombus.  Who in the world cares? I just wanted diamond argyle type shapes on my wall!  I did not need a lesson in Geometry.  May I please have a picture that I can print off and trace a stencil from? THANK YOU.    I ended up with 2 1/3 diamond shapes on each stencil, which worked out well for my obsession with odd numbers.  But the taping on the wall?  That was not so fun.

For starters, there's a reason why stencils have those little cut-outs which make it so stencily.  Because if you have, for hypothetical example, two diamond shapes right next to each other, the attached part flops around.  Making it very difficult to tape to the wall in any sort of straight fashion.

This photo shows the top row that I painted, struggling with the stencil.

I used a foam brush, and apparently I used too much paint around the edges because it leaked under the stencil. So I decided to tape the stencil to the wall and use a pencil to draw in the diamonds after the second row was disastrous. That worked out well - and I got out my trusty roll of painter's tape which I had never used before in my life previous to this summer's church remodeling.

Y'all. It is a lot of work to tape off diamonds.  They have these points and angles and WHAT IN THE WORLD WAS I THINKING?

I'm pleased with the overall effect at this point, though.  I think the size of the piece is proportionate to the wall, and I placed it on that wall specifically because that's where I wanted it and no I did not measure a single thing. That's how I roll.

There was a gallon of cream wall paint in the garage leftover from when the babies' rooms were painted by my sister in law, so I used it to touch up the border (and to cover up where Zesty got ahold of the pink paint brush and painted on the wall) once I was finished.  You likey?

It took me longer to tape off Zesty's piece, but I was more diligent about not having to do any more touching up than was absolutely necessary.  Sooo worth it!  This one is smaller by one row, because I miscounted when I was drawing in the diamonds from the stencil.

Your thoughts?  I love it.  I love showing these walls off to my visitors.  If anyone wants to know what Pinky wants for her first birthday (in less than three weeks), she wants Mommy to sew her some pretty curtains from that apple material ... available at JoAnn's ... :)