I have a lot of wood floors in my house and rugs can be really expensive...especially nice ones. I suppose I could slap down a piece of Berber, but that's not exactly my style. I found a jute rug on clearance at Hobby Lobby a few months ago. Jute is good...cheesy leopard print is not. That print was certainly why it was on clearance. I flipped it over in the store and it looked just like an ordinary jute rug when upside down, so I bought it.
It's served me well for a few months, but it's a little ho-hum. When I had an opportunity to select a stencil from my sponsor, Royal Design Studio, I knew exactly what I wanted to stencil. Yep, the ho-hum underside of the clearance leopard print jute rug in my guest room. I chose a simple Swedish-style stencil (say that five times fast), which would make a perfect border.
I measured the stencil and the rug to see how the two matched up. It wasn't going to be a perfect fit, but I wasn't concerned with perfection. I want it to look hand done, not machine stamped.
I poured some white paint into a clean Chinese food container, which was the perfect size for this humungo stencil brush (that's not the technical term for it), also from Royal Design Studio. (You know how much I love brushes, so I couldn't resist this bad boy, mac-daddy brush...also not the technical term.) Once I lined up the stencil where I wanted it, I dipped just the tips into the paint and wiped off the excess
I held the stencil in place (if you're working on a vertical surface, you will definitely want to use tape or a stencil adhesive to hold it into place) and applied the paint in a gentle swirling motion. Because I didn't have a lot of paint on the brush, I didn't need to worry about paint bleeding under the stencil. A rough texture, like jute, is also very forgiving.
I lined the stencil up and worked around the rest of the rug.
I added one flower in each of the four corners, so the design visually wraped around the entire border of the rug. This project took me about 15 minutes and added a great finishing touch to a rug I simply settled for (and used upside down) because it was on clearance.
I think this stencil would also look amazing on stair risers, a table apron or the front of a dresser.
Thanks so much to Royal Design Studio for providing me with the stencil and brush. They have some beautiful patterns available to deck your walls, rugs, floors, fabric, whatever. The "Springtime in Paris" all-over stencils is one of my favorites.
Use coupon code MMS10 to save 10% off your order.
Yeah...see...I'm not very good at resting. I was going to get a massage today (a gift certificate I received for my birthday), but I couldn't get an appointment, darn it. I am still having a nice dinner and seeing a show, though, so it will still be an afternoon and evening out of my paint clothes.
