#border stencil

[radicalgraff]

"Borders kill people"

Stencil spotted in Ventimiglia, Italy

[jokeanddaggerdept]

[azurefied]

[citytattoos]

New challenges.

405 freeway between La Cienega and Arbor Vitae St

Inglewood, CA

[fulllinestencils]

Effortless Elegance: Transforming Your Quilt Borders With Easy Stencils

Introduction:

Welcome to our quilting blog, where we explore creative ways to enhance your quilting projects. In this article, we will dive into the world of quilt borders and how you can effortlessly elevate their elegance using easy stencils. If you're looking to add a touch of charm and sophistication to your quilts, read on to discover the magic of quilting stencils for borders.

Quilting Stencils for Borders: Unlocking Creativity

Quilt borders play a vital role in framing and enhancing the overall design of your quilt. They provide a finishing touch that can truly transform a simple quilt into a stunning masterpiece. Quilting stencils offer an effortless way to elevate your borders, allowing you to explore various patterns and designs.

Easy Border Stencils: Simple Yet Impactful

One of the best things about using quilting stencils for borders is that they are incredibly easy to use. Even if you're a beginner, you can achieve professional-looking results with minimal effort. These stencils typically come in a variety of shapes, sizes, and designs, providing endless possibilities for customization.

How to Get Started:

1. Choose the Right Stencil: Begin by selecting a stencil that complements the style and theme of your quilt. Whether you prefer floral motifs, geometric patterns, or intricate designs, there is a stencil out there to match your vision.

2. Gather Your Materials: Apart from the stencil itself, you'll need a few basic supplies such as fabric marking pens or chalk, painter's tape, and a quilting ruler. Ensure that your quilt top is complete before moving on to the border.

3. Position and Secure the Stencil: Lay your quilt top on a flat surface and position the stencil where you want the design to appear on your border. Secure the stencil in place using painter's tape, ensuring it remains steady during the tracing process.

4. Trace the Design: With the stencil securely in place, use a fabric marking pen or chalk to trace the design onto your quilt border. Take your time and make sure the lines are clear and precise. Once you've completed tracing the design, carefully remove the stencil.

5. Quilt the Border: Now it's time to bring your traced design to life. Follow the lines you've traced using your preferred quilting technique, such as free-motion quilting or straight-line stitching. Take care to maintain even stitching throughout the border.

The Impact of Easy Stencils on Quilt Borders:

By incorporating easy stencils into your quilt borders, you can instantly add depth, texture, and visual interest to your quilting projects. The intricate designs created with stencils can beautifully complement the overall theme of your quilt, tying all the elements together harmoniously.

Tips for Using Quilting Stencils:

- Experiment with different stencil designs to create unique combinations for your borders.

- Practice tracing the design on a scrap piece of fabric before applying it to your actual quilt border.

- Consider using contrasting thread colors to make your quilting stand out and give your border more dimension.

Conclusion:

Effortless elegance is within your reach when you embrace the power of quilting stencils for borders. These easy-to-use tools allow you to unleash your creativity and transform your quilts into works of art. By following a few simple steps and selecting the right stencil for your project, you can achieve stunning results. So, go ahead and explore the world of easy border stencils, and let your quilting borders become an exquisite showcase of your artistic vision. Happy quilting!

[vintagehomecollection]

In this informal living room one traditional stencil pattern is used across the floor and another forms a border, eliminating the need for rugs. A camelback sofa, a comb-backed Windsor, and Boston rocking chairs surround the simple table. Staffordshire figures and salt-glaze jugs decorate the mantel.

The Good Housekeeping Complete Guide to Traditional American Decorating, 1982

[dognonsense]

Question...how do you make your patches? They seem so fuckin cool. I'm working on a vest and a jacket atm, and I'd like for them to be done by the time a pride fest rolls around next month.

Main technique I use for making patches nowadays is linocut. Its best suited for mass production of patches.

Make sure to remember your carving the mirror image so you have to flip all the text. Using tracing paper to flip the design is a good trick, as well as leaving graphite marks on side, then pressing that to the lino to leave the marks in the same spot. Another trick with pencil is to view what ur carving in negative space quickly, put a paper over your design and shade over it with pencil, darker marks will be where you haven't carved yet.

I use speedball fabric ink, it takes 1 week to set then will be fine to be washed. I have magenta, violet, turqouise, and white. They have a limited range of fabric colors at the store. I have seen gold and silver fabric paint for sale and I will investigate it one day.

I use a speedball roller, i find the smaller one to be better than the big one as I can be more precise and waste less ink.

I got a fancy handle for $40 but the screws fallen out so its broken now so just get some heavy books. I used to use a mug. Whats important is pushing your whole body weight into it.

I got a speedball carving tool with different heads I can swap out so I can cut into the lino at different deepness and widths. The heads are stored inside the tool since its hollow and has a screwable removable bottom. I use linocut or dollar store erasers for my carvings. Make sure to wash the ink off your linocuts after your done using them.

A thing to increase the lifespan of you're linocuts is to use wood glue, some cork or wood pieces, and glued the lino stamps onto them. I dont do that yet so my stamps fall appart from overuse sometime and because I cut way too deep into the lino since I hate chatter.

Chatter is the term for in linocutting when theres little messy lines and stuff. It makes the art more recognisably to be linocut. My work is very clean with no chatter which is why people don't notice its linocut usually. This is a stylistic choice, with diy styles having a lot of chatter can look really cool so experiment with leaving bits of extra uncarvered lino sticking out in ur stamp. I need to experiment and buy some more lino.

You can also use multiple linocut stamps together to make a patch. Some patches ive made have like 8 different stamps. Ive made a dog nonsense patch where each letter was their own eraser stamp. You can also use different colors between the different lino stamps on the same patch to add more color. An effect I like to do is first stamp it in color, then the next day I stamp it in white over the same spot but shifted to the right and down slightly. It makes the text have a cool border 3D effect I love doing.

If making a more detailed picture with colors, i reccomend hand painting patches. I use white fabric paint mixed with acrylics for color to get all the shades i need. Acrylic paint mixed with fabric softener works too.

If doing words and you dont want a unique font reccomend using letter stamps. If you want a unique font for that i recommend hand paint for individual or linocut for mass produce.

The positive of letter stamps is the font is neat and can be done quickly. I know from lending them to my roommate that they are very helpful if you have dyslexia and have trouble getting letters right.

A visual effect of the letter stamps is that have a nice boxy edge effect, its an imperfection that adds a personally touch to it. I have both lower and upper case stamps that I got from michaels. You can use a hair band or elastic to hold a bunch of letter stamps together to make a word stamp.

You can use other stamps than letters that you find at craft stores for example my racoon print is a craftstore stamp.

You can also find big plastic letter stencils at the dollar store that you can use to do lettering by filling in gaps with a sponge or or paintbrush. They make special paintbrushes just for using stencils.

You can also get plastic stencils in the shapes of things, i got some for children and use a horse stencil for my horse smoking weed patch. Easier than drawing a horse myself.

Another technique I use for more unique clean patches is gel plating. I haven't tried printing laserprint images with it as ive seen online a lot but I will try one day. What i personally do is use it to make imprints with chains and physical objects.

Another thing i use with gelplates are any stamps or linocuts that dont have words, or words ones that i fucked up with and forgot to mirror when carving. It flips mirror image twice with the gel plate so it goes back to being right again on the patch.

Another patch making technique is using foamboard cut into shapes glued onto cardboard. This is good for a quick test of a design and is very cheap to make. It will not hold under water so is more difficult to clean.

[wh0relibrarian]

you’re tattoo artist!sukuna’s favorite client. you’ve seen him so much that he gives discounts now, allowing you the financial freedom for even more tats. so now you’re coming to him like twice a month (give or take) and he can’t get enough of you.

and you’re not an idiot. he’s a talented artist, his work is worth way more than what he’s charging. and you’ve noticed the way he clings onto your body during sessions, the way his thumb rubs small circles into your plush skin as he works. always making sure his favorite girl is comfortable. you’ve been falling into his trap willingly. letting your legs open a bit more while he’s in between them working on a sternum tat. there’s something so addicting about the way he’s focused on your body, that, plus the slight pain of the tattoo in general makes you dizzy.

it’s no surprise that after a few months you start booking late night sessions with him. the shop being completely empty by the time he finishes prepping his station. when it’s time to put the stencil on your desired area, he does the honors of putting it up against you while you are both looking in the mirror. his bulky frame practically spilling out the mirror’s borders. you never realized how tall he was until now. his arms are slinked around your waist from behind, fondling with the buttons of your jeans to try and get a better placement. of course it isn’t your fault that your pants are at your ankles now as tattoo artist! sukuna rubs your clit gracefully. his other hand laced around your throat, forcing you to keep looking at yourself as he brings you to the edge. at one point you swear he was snickering, almost like you crying out his name and wiggling around in his grasp was entertaining for him.

“Shhh, pretty girl, let yourself go f’me. Such a slut, y’know that?” your head was nodding uncontrollably, his hand only gripped tighter around your throat.

“Pretty girls can use their words, yeah? Tell me how it feels baby.”

“S-so good. So good—!” your orgasm came like a massive wave, washing over both you and tattoo artist!sukuna. his movements slowed down on your pussy as he planted soft kisses on your temple.

“Now get yourself cleaned up, I got a job to do, and we don’t want yer boyfriend wonderin’ why it’s taking so long.”

oh right…. choso.

[sits-bound]

Bound: Grounds for Divorce by Tepre

For some reason, after I posted this, it disappeared. So here it is again.

I love everything about this bind. The end.

(Did I hit the lemon theme hard? Yes. Do I regret it? I do not.)

Usually, I'd complain about whatever I messed up here but I didn't mess up anything! It's perfect! I love every little bit of it! (Okay, if pushed, I'd say I wish I'd used slightly darker paint on the borders of the cover, but I also like how they're kind of invisible.)

Let's see. I bought the lemon graphics off etsy, and used them all over the book. The end papers are just a bunch of them layered. I love them. I even foiled one on the other side of the endpapers, just for fun.

The stenciling came out beautifully. The vinyl gave me no trouble. I don't even know what to say about this except I can't wait to read it.

Body text: Corundum Text (as usual) Chapter titles: MrsSaintDelafield Pro Drop caps and titles: Fino Pro

Bookcloth: Dubletta in orange-yellow

[moss-opossum]

I don’t feel like I have any super substantive updates on my patch vest (I’ve been in a pretty bad flareup for a bit), but there are some new additions so I thought I’d share anyway.

Image description: the front of a dark grey denim vest with the arm holes hand-hemmed in red thread. On the left lapel is a large heart-shaped it/its pin surrounded by a cloudy rainbow border. On the chest beside it is an enamel Magen David pin in the colors of the trans flag, beside which is a crocheted watermelon attached with a safety pin. On the left breast pocket is a cross-stitched asexual flag secured with dark purple thread and an acrylic pin of an opossum holding a non-binary heart. On the right breast pocket there is a machine-embroidered sunflower patch, and beneath that is another machine-embroidered patch reading “disabled is not a bad word”, secured by lavender thread. Above the pocket is a genderqueer flag pin, next to that is a cross-stitched patch reading “I mask so I don’t bite you” in all caps with a red border and “bite” in red. Above that is a small holographic pin with a sparkly rainbow heart on it. /end description

Image description: the back of the same vest, with two stenciled black patches, one on each shoulder, each secured by x-shaped stitches in lavender thread. The one on the left reads “queer joy”, the one on the right reads “T4T”. /end description

I love my vest and I love talking about it, so if anyone has questions about any part of it please don’t be shy to ask!

[radicalgraff]

"No Borders, No Nation, Stop Deportation"

Stencils seen in Vienna

[hometoursandotherstuff]

Cute house, needs a little fixing here and there, but it was built in 1898 in Weatherford, Texas, has 5bds, 4ba, and was just reduced $45K to $650K.

Love the entrance hall. That door! Beautiful woodwork and the newel post lamp still works.

Just beautiful.

I wish they hadn't painted the wood in these rooms blue, but here it is. They even got to the pocket doors. Luckily, they left the gorgeous original fireplace alone. This is the sitting room, and that wood would be very hard to strip and restore.

Nice that they left the blue carpet, though. It's like new.

The pocket doors open to the dining room that has a door to the porch.

And, from the dining room, you enter the kitchen. Love that they left the stick walls and original features. Look at the stove built around the chimney. I like the cabinet color and copper exhaust hood, too.

It's a very large eat-in kitchen. This is a great reno b/c it beautifully blends old with new.

They completely renovated this bath and it's nice for what it is, but I wouldn't have put it into a Victorian home.

In this bedroom, the floor's a little worn and needs refinishing, but it has wonderful doors with transoms and an original corner fireplace.

These rooms are very bright and get lots of natural sunlight.

The owner was into folk art, and if you like folk art, this home has a lot of nice painting. In this room they did the fireplace, a painted "carpet" on the floor, and stenciled border along the top.

It's hard to see, but there are 2 cute bears wearing pants on the fire box screen.

This must be a 3rd level bedroom and you can see the nicely stenciled art.

It has its own bath.

Here's another nice big room with a painted rug.

An interesting room.

It's very large up here and looks like this is where at least 2 or 3 of the bedrooms are located.

This is a cute bath. Love the blue floor.

How cute is this little storage building in the driveway? It says Blacksmith Shop.

It's a very nice property.

Lots of trees on the .66 acre corner lot.

And, just a few blocks from the historic downtown district.

https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/202-E-Lee-Ave-Weatherford-TX-76086/230770336_zpid/

[fullofgutsndopamine]

Sleeping In The Garden (You Broke The Dark)

(or the single dad hasan fic no one asked for)

tw/cursing, insta-love

cavity inducing fluff below the cut, don't say i didn't warn you

more here

you arrived early to the library to set up.

you didn’t need a full hour and a half to unpack a small suitcase full of various cheap school supplies; Crayola paints and old brushes warn with age, stencils and small canvases.

it's winter break at the small school you teach, and to make ends meet, you've been doing small paint and sip activities at local libraries for the kids.

it gets the children out of their parents hair for an hour and a half, and they're usually excited to see the artwork they work on come to life-and the hot chocolate is an added bonus for most kids.

kids file in, and while the class was filled, you can't help but notice the seat in the corner unoccupied as you gather your supplies, say a quiet prayer to whatever god exists, and walk to the front of the room-

the door is thrown open, and a tall man ducks into the room, snow covering his mop of curly brown hair, hunched over so he doesn't tower over his kid, his hand on their back as he speaks quietly to them:

"Go on. You're okay."

She takes a step, but immediately retreats back and hides behind the mans leg, her tiny fingernails dig into his leg.

"Baby," he sighs, "C'mon. I promise-"

He looks up and sees you, his face turns pink and he stands a little straighter, takes the hat off his head and tries to wipe the snow out of his hair.

"I'm so sorry we're late," he sounds genuine, "I can offer you an assortment of excuses, each shittier than the last-"

"Papa."

he realizes his mistake, the curse word, and half turning around, speaks gently: "That's right. My bad. That's a quarter in the jar when we get home, okay?"

finally, a small giggle from behind his legs, and he stands a little straighter, as if proud of this breakthrough.

"You aren't too late," You reassure him, "We didn't even really start."

"Oh, good." and he sounds so genuinely happy, you have to bite your lip from smiling back, "She hasn't stopped talking about this since I signed her up."

"Papa."

A groan from behind his leg that makes him laugh

"You can stay," You say, probably too quick even, borders on pathetic, "If it makes your daughter more comfortable. Plenty of parents stay."

And that's not a lie, necessarily, a few parents stayed, but they mostly linger towards the back, by the various snacks, heads buried in their phones.

"Papa," the voice from behind his legs come, border on pleading: "Stay?"

and then, a little quieter, a little teary, she finishes with a, "Please?"

and listen, you don't know the man in front of you, or the kid either, but as he kneels on the floor, his head titled and voice low, "Okay." He nods, "I'll stay."

he pushes down the laundry list of things he needs to do; phone calls to make, grocery shopping to do-

his daughter comes first, always.

He looks up at you, a small smile on his face: "I won't get in the way, I promise, where do you want us?"

And he stands, and slings his daughter onto his hip, a carbon copy of him, a mop of curly hair on top of her head, some sloppy ponytail and a knit hat shoved over her head-

"There's a seat right there." You bite your lip and turn, pointing towards the empty chair, hoping you turned in time so he doesn't see the red of your face.

"Thank you uh-" He shakes his head, laughs, "Sorry, I didn't get your name uhm-"

You laugh, "Right, It's nice to meet you-"

And you offer your hand, hands in the air and feels awkward for half a second as you introduce yourself, but he laughs, shakes back:

"hasan," he gives the kid on his hip a gentle shake, "And this is Ophelia."

"It's nice to meet you two," You smile at the small figure on his hip, who buries her head into his shoulder blade, her hands hold tiny handfuls of his sweater, makes him roll his eyes but fond at the side of his lips as he bounces her on his hip, "Have a seat, and i'll bring everything over in a second."

He shakes his head, as if dazed, "Of course, right." and walks to the table, trips over his own feet, but manages to help himself from falling.

He sets Ophelia on a chair, and takes his own coat off, sits cross legged next to her on the floor, still towers over her, his voice low but he's smiling and pointing at everything, obviously trying to make her more comfortable-

You stand at the front, slowly starting the beginning instructions after you set hasan and Ophelia up with the supplies, watch as he carefully ties the apron around her waist, a tickle on her side as she finally giggles, reaches over and stars grabbing at the paint exctidely-

you go around, getting ready to serve the small paper cups of hot chocolate, once you realize everyone is mostly comfortable (even Ophelia, who has made friends with the little boy next to her) when you feel a presence by your elbow.

"Sorry, hope I didn't scare you," He smiles, scratches the back of his neck, "Thought i'd ask if you needed help."

He smiles weakly for a second before his eyes go wide, "Not that it doesn't look like you don't have this under control or anything!"

finally, you laugh, and it seems to make some anxiety he has go away.

"That would actually be great," You laugh, "If you wanna carry the tray, I can hand 'em out. We can doule team."

He nods, "Sure, of course-"

"And I can re-pay you," you continue, a smirk on your lips.

"Oh," He shakes his head, "No way. How happy Ophelia is, is good enough payment"

'and meeting you' hangs on the tip of his tongue, but he swallows that down

"The payment is unfortunately," you continue, turning around, "In marshmallows."

you turn back around, a large bag of mini marshmallows in your hand

he laughs, a giggle, his voice teasing, "Hot chocolate and marshmallows?"

"Marshmallows are my love language." You laugh, and before you realize what you're saying he's nodding, like that actually means something

"Good to know," he laughs, "I'll keep that in mind."

And your face blushes red again and you shrug, struggle with the ends of the bag for a second before he takes it, opens it without asking and hands it back

he snorts at himself, "I'm so sorry," he shakeshis head, "I think i'm still in dad mode."

You laugh, shake your head, "That's okay-"

He cuts you off, "You lead the way?" he says gently, "And maybe i can make it up to you later?"

for a second, you wonder what, exactly, he wants to make up, but as he looks at his dirty converse and kicks gently at the ground, his face red, you know what he's getting at.

"Yeah," you shake your head, hoping it doesn't come off as desperate as it feels, "I'd love that."

"Yeah?" his head whips up, and he nods, as if he's calm about the whole thing.

"yeah," he nods a final time, "It's a date."

and you two deliver hot chocolate with marshmallows, both of your faces tinged pink, ignoring the way your hands knock into each other the entire time.

[chirpingfromthebox]

Victoire-O-Lantern Stencil

[I did the original as a vector image, but sites don't like those, so if you'd like one or just a png of a certain size just let me know. Personally I like my stencils as vector images so I can scale it to whatever pumpkin size I wind up using.]

The Black sections are the parts you cut out completely.

The Grey sections are the parts you just merely etch into the surface enough so your candle can light up the inner pumpkin flesh. (if that makes sense?)

A nice thing about the Victoire logo is that if you want you can do it fully cut out as long as you take the border out of the design. But if you go that route just be warned that you'll be trading the tiresomeness of etching with the tiresomeness of needing to be a little meticulous with your carving as a lot of the shapes are pretty close together and the more you have cut out in a space the more delicate you'll need to be.

I haven't tried it out yet, but I think this one will make for a pretty cool jack-o-lantern.

[toshidou]

The 141, except it's a Tattoo and Piercing studio, owned and ran by John Price. He bought the shop when he was 20, taking the dilapidated building from an eyesore, to one of the most reputable and famous tattoo parlours in the UK.

His team is small, but curated by John himself, and he prides himself on the talent he's secured over the nearly 20 years he's owned his shop. People don't just flock to the 141 for his longstanding passion and expertise in tattooing, nor for his flawless execution of designing perfect thought out sleeves. They come for his team, too.

There's his longest working, and most popular artist, Ghost. Known for his mysterious appearance and personality just as much as his work. A master of both the new school tattoo style, and more modern takes on needlework, he'll tirelessly work to make sure every piece of work he tattoos is unique. His art focuses more on the macabre, often showcasing the weird and the wonderful on his socials, when he does eventually post.

Johnny "Soap" Mactavish got his name because of his clean lines and flawless technique, a master of fine line and delicate tattoos, not that his appearance gives that away. Covered in both ink and piercings, topped off with an electric blue mohawk, he's a sight to behold, but don't let his looks distract you from his sheer talent. He's known for being the most energetic artist in the 141, more than happy to chin wag with his clients for the full duration of their tattoo. Yet despite talking non-stop, his work remains entirely flawless.

Kyle "Gaz" Garrick started out as Price's apprentice, struggling through college and debilitating art block when Price found his art displayed at his university's gallery. John took him under his wing, and with his help, he mastered the art of hyper-realistic tattoos. Some of his clients travel across the globe just to get his work on their skin, trusting no one but him to give them the perfect tattoo.

Farah Karim is the most recent addition, but a valuable one at that. Specialising in mandala, and geometric designs, Farah creates works of art that border on spiritual. She prides herself on her precision needle work, and steady hand, known for more often than not free-handing her tattoos with no stencil. Her dot shading and line work is pixel perfect, and she'll stand for nothing less than the very best for each and every one of her clients.

Gary "Roach" Sanderson is the studio's resident piercer. He might be quiet, but he has a long list of loyal customers who come to him, and only him to get pierced. He makes his own jewellery, spending hours fashioning unique and gorgeous designs out of titanium and gems. No one creates jewellery like him, meaning his books are full years to come.

Between them all, they create a studio full to the brim with creative ideas and inspiration, never running dry of the passion they hold for the work they do. Which is a good thing, considering their list of clientele only continues to skyrocket higher and higher.

[bomberqueen17]

archway stencils

i keep forgetting to post about this. I did my archway stencils this past week!

[image description: looking through an orange archway, stenciled with turquoise stars in an alternating pattern, to see the deep teal wall stenciled with larger gold stars I did earlier]

progress shots and discussion under cut!

[image: the stencil, with a central eight-pointed star, and then the partial alternating star in the corners; the stencil is mounted diagonally so that the main star is centered on the archway trim, and there's a corner above and below]

I futzed around a little and this was the direction that worked. I'd thought about just doing that central element and repeating it freehand, but this was easier to line up..... but then to finish it, i would have to do TWO additional passes with the stencil, one on each side.

[image description: the archway in the background with the central element alternating with just the middle of the second element, as left behind by one pass of the stencil; I'm going to have to go back and fill in the sides of the second element. But in the foreground, I am holding my cat, because she insisted.]

I had Help. she wanted me to do this instead of paint. The whole time. She was incredibly persistent.

[image: the archway with one of my secondary passes complete, and the stencil stuck on diagonally showing how I have to separately fill in the left and right of each of the edge elements.]

I had experimented with just plopping the central element over this corner thing, and using that to fill in all the rest at once, but you see how the central element has long diamond-shaped "petals", but the other one has the shorter inward-pointing "petals" in the middle, and then longer petals on the sides? Yeah the longer petals are not shaped like the central element's, even though they look similar-- they are wider throughout. So to blend them with the half-petal deposited by the first pass of the stencil, it looks wonky as hell. And it does look better having a fully different element for every other star, instead of a blended sort-of-weird half-different one. So the long hard way it is; I went all the way down doing the left half then went to the other doorway and did the left half and then came back and did the right half, in totally separate passes, because you can see you have to tape the stencil down over the existing element, and if it were at all damp you're ripping paint off when you do that.

This stencil company does make specific border stencils for some of their designs, and I sort of thought this one was intended for that kind of use, but clearly it's not. I mean it worked fine so I'm not actually annoyed, but I did have to think about it a lot.

Some process notes: I did not use specialty stencil creme for this, I used my sample pot of a slightly lighter shade of the paint I used for the walls. it was semi-gloss because that's what they had for sample pots, and that worked out fine. I put it into the same plastic half-a-cannoli-box tray as before, and used the smaller stencil brush, and I did not really have to add drops of water, as the paint was less thick, but I had almost zero problem with bleeding-- all my problems were that I had to overlap the stencil while still damp and would sometimes get paint on the back of the stencil that then smudged onto bits I didn't want paint on. Paint also built up on the stencil really horribly because I was using it more intensively-- doing the whole wall it was kind of spread out over the huge stencil, but this was a single element. Being able to see through the stencil helped in positioning, so what I eventually wound up doing was that I would position the stencil, tape it down, wipe it clean with a rag, adjust the position, use it, move it to the next location, wipe it clean with a rag, repeat.

It was so hard to get the second element lined up-- you see how the "petal" is done in two pieces? well it never quite lined up and there was always a gap-- that eventually I pulled a plastic milk jug out of the recycling, traced the stencil on it, and cut out a stencil that was *just* a full copy of that half-petal mirrored so I could see if the stencil wasn't going to line up cleanly, I could just focus on lining up one of the petals, and leave the other blank and come back and add it with the standalone whole-petal homemade stencil. Good thing I'm a dab hand with an exacto.

[image description: a star stencil 3/4 complete, but the diagonal petals have gaps in the middle of them] Here's a problem example, and I was getting this on about half of them.

[image description: a piece of flat white plastic, an exacto knife, a cutting board, and a stencil element cut out of the white plastic.]

So instead I would rotate the stencil so one of the petals was good, and leave the other one off entirely to come back and do later.

[image description: looking from the living room through the stenciled archway to the kitchen, and this face of the archway is painted purple, and the wall is repainted to a consistent sunny yellow.]

I know that the most hinged thing to do would have been to just do all the trim orange, and then the wall yellow, and let it be, but I could not resist being fussy and doing the living-room-facing trim back in the living-room-trim purple color. I fortunately was able to find the original pots of paint from when we painted the living room, and it was still good!!!! (mixed in august of '07! amazing) so I repainted the living room wall where it was primer-white after the reconstruction. Looks pretty seamless now! But I have one more light switch faceplate to paint, it looks like. Hmmmmm what color.

The last thing I have left to do is the corner above the front door, where this newly-repainted yellow wall intersects with the wall above the front door that I decided should be kitchen-teal.

I could just do the corner as a flat normal transition. But I want to try to do something fancy, some kind of like pixel-dissolve or like, the stencil bits sticking into the other color, or something.

For now I've painted a cereal box and stuck it up there and I am going to put stenciled attempts on cardboard up there to see what they look like before I commit.

[image description: the corner above the front door of the house. the wall below is the kitchen wall and is teal. the wall above the archway is yellow because it's the living room. the wall above the door is not fully painted but is mostly kitchen teal. the corner is a cardboard cereal box painted yellow on one side and teal on the other, cut to fit.] it is an awkward junction! The most hinged thing would be to keep it simple-- would have been to just do all the trim orange and then the upper wall yellow and just make sure the corner was sharp and clean.

But I'm not that hinged, so I might as well do something that calls attention to it, LOL.