When Momma’s Kitchen Calls…

When your Mother calls and tells you she is tired of walking in her front door and staring at a wall of white cabinets, you better come with stencils and brushes in hand!!

My Mother lives in the cutest little cottage house!  It wasn’t always that way.  When she bought it, it had dark wallpaper, dingy grey walls, and a glimmer of character.  We spent the next year making changes to every room in the house.  Just when I think I am done, she calls…

 Seems that it is really bugging her that the first thing you see when you walk in the front door is a wall of plain white cabinet doors. 

I immediately did what I always do.  I started looking around the kitchen for clues, design ideas, and color choices. 

Blue was going to be in order, as were floral's. 
     


I had the perfect stencil in mind.  I have used an worked with stencils from Royal Design Studios for as long as I can remember!  The stencils are always very elegant and timeless designs.  The Floral Embroidery Centerpiece I thought would be the perfect way to dress up these very plain pantry doors. 
I gathered all my supplies.  For this project, it included craft paints, a bit of glaze or extender, painters tape, a level, a measuring stick, and of course, the stencil and stencil brushes. 


I will use a Styrofoam plate, or in the case a sanitized meat tray as my palette. Stenciling takes very little paint and a very dry brush.   For this design, I used 2 colors of paint that I intermixed.  I achieved the look of several colors depending on how heavily I applied the paint or the amount of shading I used.

An important note…  when we repainted the cabinets in her house, we primed and painted them in a high quality acrylic paint.  ( We used Aura from Benjamin Moore).  Otherwise, the acrylic paint would  not adhere well to an oil based paint. 

When stenciling darn near anything, just like carpentry, you want to measure at least twice, and paint only once!  I did my math to figure out the placement of the stencil. Since I was doing a big “wall” of cabinetry, I wanted to be sure the design was centered and spaced evenly. 
This photo shows you how I work when stenciling.  This was a 2 part or 2 overlay stencil.  I will often use one of the overlays as a guide on size and placement.  In this case, I was doing a coloration very similar to the cover sheet that was included with the stencil.  Otherwise, I ALWAYS do a few prints of my design to be sure I have colors, shading, and scale correct. 

The first overlay is done.  If you look closely, you can see that the design is not filled in 100%.  By varying the amount of pressure and paint you use, you can create depth in design. 

…
Here is the design after the second overlay has been painted.  To get the second impression, I simply flipped the stencil upside down and stenciled the design. 


Here are the finished cabinet doors.  They really spruced the place up, don’t you think?  And now, your view from when you walk in the front door….

You are greeted by a great wall of design that sets the tone for the entire house!  Well, almost…  Seems after we finished, we took a second look around the kitchen.  Now, the rest of the cabinets look a bit bare. 

Guess I will be returning to add to these cabinets.  Oh well, Momma always feeds me lunch! 
Have you tried stenciling?  I love to stencil!  I think it is a great way to make a huge impact!
Until next thyme,
Happy Painting!

Karen

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