Custom DIY Stenciling & Staining furniture!

Stencil and Stain furniture!

Here's some alarming before and afters...

I began with a nightstand that was in seriously bad shape.

Glue, dents, dings, water stains, sticker goo...you name it...

this thing was disgusting!

The redeeming feature is that they were REAL wood...

I knew we could work with it!

The stool was in comparable shape. Thankfully they were cheap at yard sales.

The crate I built from scrap wood from the garage...and spare casters.

I spent a lot of time sanding things down.

I am too cheap to buy a $40-50 stencil for a project I am going to use once...

so I improvise and make my own.

I inserted my thick plastic right into my silhouette cameo.

Once I tweaked the quatrefoil background I wanted...I had the cameo "cut" it.

This plastic is much too thick to have the cameo cut it out though.

It did score the lines though...and that's what I wanted!

Then I spent hours cutting it out.

Yeah, it was slow going...but my son and I listened to some of the Hobbit on cd, 

so that was fun.

I always put an x on the inside of where I am cutting...sometimes,

you (okay, me) are so close to something and you snap

 and start cutting out the wrong parts!

Done at last!

With no time to spare...I measure the surfaces of everything to

stencil and marked a tiny x on the center.

Then I lined up my stencil and started in the middle.

Here's the secret...repositionable spray.

Keep it in place while you work!

I used a parisian slightly off-white paint that I 

had sitting around and a stipple brush

One you do the stenciling...you wait until the paint is totally

dry before pressing it down again and painting the next piece.

But it worked pretty well, because I had so many surfaces that

needed to be painted...so I just went around until all the centers

were painted and then the first one was ready for part 2, and so on.

At first I wasn't going to stencil the sides of the nightstand...

besides I had run out of white paint! But it needed it, so I got out some

acrylic paint and did it.

Not a perfect paint match, but close enough.

Well, they still looked boring to me, so I edged them in aqua blue.

and let them dry over night.

Oh, ya, painted the inside of the drawers too!

And used up all my aqua paint as well!

Next day was the fun!

Staining!

I used dark walnut stain. I wanted it dark...so I painted it on with a 

paintbrush and then rubbed off the excess with an old rag. 

Repeated over all the surfaces. I love how it makes the stencil pop out!

Gives it a rich look!

Once the staining was done...the knobs and handles needed replacing.

I had a ton of random knobs I got at a yard sale...none match.

and they were gold.

I just sprayed them all brassy copper and they match perfectly now!

See how perfectly they work with the stained wood?

And here's a bunch of finished product pictures!

Perfect little matching bedroom set! 

Linking up to THESE parties this week!