Sara's Tips and Tricks for Stenciling Curtains

I'm still loving my curtains.

When I shared them I mentioned that there are a lot of tutorials online for stenciling curtains. I don't want to be redundant, so I'll skip the step-by-step part and offer my tips for anyone who might take on this project. You can take or leave my unsolicited advice, of course, but thought I'd share in the hopes of preventing unneeded headaches for everyone else. I'm a regular Mother Teresa, I tell you.  

Sara's Tips and Tricks for Stenciling Curtains: 

• Recruit a friend to help you! My mom is a good sport, so she worked on these with me. She held the stencil while I sponged and did various other things that made this project more manageable. (Thanks, mom! You're so awesome!) 
• If possible, buy more than one stencil. I started with one stencil and we had to keep taking breaks to wash the stencil when paint seeped underneath the stencil. This was very time consuming since seepage happened somewhat regularly. With more than one stencil, we were simply able to grab another stencil when the seepage paint on one stencil needed to dry. I actually ended up with four stencils thanks to Joann's famous 40% off coupons. Four is probably a little overboard, but this system proved to be very efficient.   
• Don't wash your stencil. As I mentioned, we started out washing them when paint leaked underneath, but over time the stencil stretched out. A stretched out stencil makes it easier for paint to seep underneath and provides more opportunity for imperfect prints. 
• Don't bother measuring the distance between stencil prints. Use an object with a constant size and shape. For example, we used quarters. Horizontally, we spaced the prints the length of two quarters butted up to each other. Vertically we used three quarters. We used this method to give us the main rows. We later went in and filled in the area between the two main rows by placing the stencil in the center of the four prints already created using the quarter method.      

• Whatever object you use to space the stencil, don't drag it from one spot to the next. We had an incident where a tiny bit of paint got on one of the quarters. Dragging it in this instance meant smearing the paint. Luckily, when this happened to us we were at the bottom of a curtain and I knew that the bottom of one of the curtains would be blocked by the couch. Ultimately, it wasn't that noticeable, but I would have noticed it every time I looked at it. So learn from our mistake: pick it up, don't slide it.  
• Just get enough paint on your sponge to do the job. Too much paint on your sponge will contribute to seepage underneath the stencil. Too little paint will make the sponge stick to the stencil causing the stencil to bounce. When in doubt, find a spare piece of cloth and do a test stencil before hand!  

Well, ladies and gentlemen, that's what I have to offer. I hope my tips serve you well. If you end up taking on your own stencil project, shoot me a line and tell me how it goes!