I am so excited to be over at my friend Rene’s blog today sharing my favorite room! Cottage & Vine is one of my most favorite blogs, and Rene is full of style! I hope you will pop over and find out which room is my favorite room!
Oh, and here i a hint…. this project I am about to share just might be in my favorite room….
I have been struggling for some time with what to put on the far wall of the dining room that has just one smaller window. I thought about shelves, but I really want the room to feel clean and open and I thought shelves might make it feel cluttered. Then last week my friend Rene at Cottage & Vine posted an E-design for a client and the design featured a mirror with peacock art on either side. I thought something similar might look great on either side of my window.
And as luck would have it I won a giveaway from my friend Tammy at Type A Decorating for a stencil a couple weeks ago! (Thank you, Tammy!). As the winner I was able to choose 2 stencils (a larger and a smaller) from Maison De Stencils. I had chosen the stencils before I knew what I would use them for, but I had chosen a lovely nest stencil as well as a peacock! Here are the images from the online store:
So being the cheapskate that I am, I picked up a 2’x4′ piece of plywood at Home Depot and had them cut it in half. (I will say I wish I had gotten MDF which would be smoother, and I may redo this in the future on MDF!) That left me with two pieces each 2’x2′.
I painted them each white, and then used a wet rag to wipe on a sea green color just to give the white some color. Then I stenciled the peacock in the center of each piece. I used a turquoise color craft paint, and then I went over that with a green craft paint just to give it more peacock coloring.
Then I taped off the edges to create a “frame”. I painted the frame in chocolate brown as a base for the gold paint I was planning to use. After a few coats of the chocolate brown I applied two coats of Martha Stewart’s gold paint (from Home Depot). I used a 2″ angle brush for this so that I could create what appeared to be frame corners with the gold paint.
After it was all dry, I removed the tape, added some hangers to the back, and voila! 2 pieces of artwork for approximately $6!
They aren’t perfect, but not too bad for spending hardly anything!