I pin. You pin. We all pin for a stencil win! I know that many of you are already BIG Pinterest fans (like me!), as well as Royal Design Studio stencil fans. SO…..we are so pleased to announce our first Pinterest pinning contest, Stencil Amour. This is your chance to pin all those stencils you’ve been coveting in one place and possibly WIN a $250 Shopping Spree.

We’ve set up the contest rules  and commenting to enter on our new Stencil Ideas Blog on our stencil website. Go to the post there to see the easy rules for entry and start pinning your fav Royal Design Studio stencils to your own Royal Design Stencils Love  Pinterest board. Then, keep your fingers crossed that you will be the lucky winner of a super $250 stencil shopping spree. Don’t forget to enter the contest by commenting on the post on Royal Design Studio. Good luck to all you pin-happy people!!

It seems like everyone is painting and stenciling furniture these days. And why not? Furniture makes a great little canvas for stencil patterns and you can accent details like table tops, drawer fronts, door panels SO easily and quickly with stencils. The availability and popularity of the the amazing Annie Sloan Chalk Paint™ is inspiring people all over the country to scour thrift stores and flea markets for furniture pieces that can be transformed in a day with some creativity and a can of paint!

One of my friends who has caught the furniture painting bug bad good, is Debbie Hayes of Faux Design Studio. Debbie is a long-time decorative artist who has the MOST amazing studio in a converted fabric mill in Greensboro, NC. There she paints endlessly (it seems!), sells her one-of-a-kind furniture pieces and also teaches others how to do the same. Debbie has such an artful approach to using Chalk Paint™ and stencil patterns we were inspired to create this lovely graphic to showcase her work.

You can find all the details about the Royal Design Studio stencils and Chalk Paint colors Debbie used in this Fabulous Furniture Stencil post on our website. I hope it inspires YOU!

There is nothing more inspiring to me than to see finished projects that our customers have done with our wall and furniture stencils! One of the things I am most excited about is that our new stencil website give us the ability to SHARE these projects with others on a weekly basis on our Stencil Ideas Blog-right from within the site! I want to encourage you all to share YOUR projects with us, because we really want to show you off!!

Here is one of our first  features showing stylish stenciled bathrooms. Bathrooms can be super fun to stencil because they are little rooms unto themselves and you can be a bit bolder with your choice of color, pattern, and scale-if you want! These three stenciled bathrooms show a nice range of ideas.

The first photo from Michelle Lopez of Sparkle Faux Designs features an allover stencil pattern treatment with our Lisboa Tile stencil. Stenciling an allover pattern in a bathroom can be a bit of a challenge because you generally will have more obstacles and areas there you have to “cut in” with the design: corners, fixtures, tile, and molding. The end effect is super stunning, though, as this photo shows. Believe it or not, allover pattern treatments actually help to visually “push out the walls” and can make small rooms seem bigger!

The second photo by Karen Jorgenson of KJ Decorative Finishes offers a brilliant alternative treatment for an allover pattern stencil. Here, Karen took a modern allover stencil Hip to B Square stencil and turned it into a graphic border. You can achieve this by using tape to mask off and paint a “frame” of pinstripes and simply stencil the allover pattern within them. I think that this amount of pattern and color is just the right compliment to the dark painted walls that offset the bright white paint and fixtures. VERY punchy!

The third photo shows another way to create the look of an allover design without stenciling every square foot of wall space. This works particularly well for a feature wall. Here, Rina Krumholz using our Grand Damask stencil and stenciled it randomly around the room in two different colors. By layering the designs here and there and turning them upside down occasionally, you can quickly stencil a unique custom look that fits your space-something you could NEVER get with wallpaper!

So-how about you? Do you have some stencil tricks and special projects up your sleeve that you’d like to share? We’d love to see them and possibly share them on our website. Please send pics of your projects using Royal Design Studio stencils to projects@royaldesignstudio.com and let’s keep the inspiration flowing!

It’s HERE! After months, years really, we have our new Royal Design Studio stencil website to unveil. Actually, it’s a Royal Design Studio stencil website 2.0, because we’ve taken the leap to putting multiple sites within a site. There is still a lot of work to do and much to add (isn’t there always???) but we have started off with our stencil site, seen below, and a new site called Paint and Create (more on that later)!

Leading off  is Royal Design Studio-the original stencil business I founded in 1994. It still looks pretty fresh, doesn’t it? Kind of like me. *cough*. The primary feature of this site is our stencil collection, of course, and we have done some fluffing up by adding cool, new graphics and reorganizing our stencils into new, more logical categories.

For instance, we broken down our Allover Damask Stencils into subcategories like Allover Floral Stencils, Allover Moroccan Stencils, Allover Modern Stencils, etc. so it’s easier to pinpoint that perfect stencil for your feature wall!

Furniture painting is uber-hot right now. Actually, it’s been popular 4ever and we’ve always had a wide range of stencil patterns for furniture painting. Difference is-now they are easy to find all in one place.

Want to create a global vibe with wall stencils? In addition to our popular moroccan stencils, we have categories for Japanese Stencils, African Stencils, Indian Stencils and more.

Another new category on the site is Children’s and Nursery Stencils. My very first attempt at stenciling was back in 1984 when I stenciled my son’s nursery with a border of my own design of ducks, hearts, and rocking horses. Alas, you won’t find THAT design here, but there are lots of cute floral stencils and lots more fun designs in the works.

Your notice that there are now tabs at the top of the site that lead to different areas. Some of these are still in progress, but we have finished up our new decorative painting site Paint and Create. This is where you will find all the cool tools and decorative painting products that you can use alone or combine with our stencil and Modello Designs masking patterns.

Of course, we are super happy to be carrying the full line of the amazing Annie Sloan Chalk Paint. This is the ORIGINAL Chalk Paint™, developed by Annie Sloan 20 years ago in England as the ultimate furniture paint.

Almost from the beginning of my stencil career, I have used stencils in combination with decorative and faux finishes. I find it so much more interesting to combine pattern with glazes, crackles, metallics and textures and you can look for lots of information on how you can too now and in the future in our Paint How-tos and Tips area.

Speaking of metallics, we have a whole section devoted just to Metallic Paint, Metal Leaf and Metallic Foil.  Here’s a way to indulge in all of your gilty pleasures without an ounce of guilt! Who doesn’t want and need a little more sparkle in their life?

OK, that’s just a little peek into the new site. It’s still a bit of a work in progress and I will be sharing more in the coming days, but please check it out and browse around for yourself and let me know what you think and what more you’d like to see!

I have something to share with you.

This something has me feeling excited, stressed, creative, anxious, thrilled.

This something keeps me focused, overwhelmed, engaged, up at night.

This something can’t happen soon enough. This something seems like a project without end.

This something is something that I hope will thrill you. This something is something that I hope doesn’t kill me.

Website (and blog!) redesigns. Coming soon. Fingers crossed.

I created a stenciled vinyl floorcloth using Annie Sloan Chalk Paint recently for a booth display that got rave reviews so thought it would make a good step-by-step tutorial to share!

Stenciled floorcloths (sometimes referred to as oil cloths or floor canvases) have a long history of use in both England and the United States. Often made from recycled canvas ship sails, painted and stenciled floorcloths offered a less expensive and more hygienic alternative to carpeting and were used extensively in homes both grand and common prior to the invention of linoleum. Most modern day floorcloths are still made from heavy canvas, which requires priming, stretching, and hemming. As I was looking for a quick and easy alternative-fast-I turned to another modern option: flooring sheet vinyl!

Now, as you know, sheet vinyl comes in many different colors and patterns including brick, tile, and more. Because I wanted a nice  smooth surface and blank canvas for my floorcloth, I chose a roll of sheet vinyl that had a smooth, felt-type backing and painted on THE BACK side. NOTE! I just purchased a very inexpensive, thin vinyl that was pre-cut and prepackaged for my trade show floor, but if you are doing this for yourself I highly recommend that you go with a much thicker, harder, and better quality vinyl.

After applying a coat of white primer and allowing that to dry, I rolled on two coats of Graphite Chalk Paint. Now, you could use any latex and/or acrylic paint for a floorcloth. I happened to choose Chalk Paint because

1. I love it, and
2. I was showcasing Chalk Paint in my booth!

I found it super easy to use on this large scale and quite ideal for stenciling! I LOVE combining complimentary stencil patterns on a project and this large 8′ x 10′ surface provided lots of space to be creative! I decided that I would use our Large Eastern Lattice stencil as the centerpiece and frame it with the Classical Border and Corner stencil. For a lacy scalloped edge, I chose the Florentine Damask stencil, with plans to just have the bottom portion of it coming off the linear border. When picking patterns to go together, I generally look for ones that offer a variety of scale but also contain unifying elements. To my eye, the lattice pattern has a petal effect that is echoed in the border pattern. The border pattern has some small dots in it which are echoed in the damask pattern. Works for me!

For a color palette, I chose Old White and Duck Egg Blue over the Graphite. I think that the addition of the Graphite with these soft, classic colors adds a little big of a fresh modern edge.

The first step was to determine where to place the Classical Border and Corner “frame”. Since the Eastern Lattice stencil is a symmetrical allover pattern, I knew that that could be repeated as much or as little as needed, but I HAD to determine how much space to leave at the edge for my Florentine Damask “lace edge” on my 8′ by 10′ floorcloth. We then measured 14.5″ in from the edge, made tick marks with a chalk pencil and ran tape on the outside of those marks. Then we measured in 4″ from there (enough to accomodate the border design and ran tape on the inside of those marks to leave a 4″ opening between the strips of tape.

We burnished the tape well and rolled on two coats of Old White Chalk Paint with a short-nap 4″ roller (not shown). When dry, we used a translucent tape to overlap just inside the frame. This was placed at roughly the width of the lines of the lattice stencil to preserve a nice black outline there. If you don’t have a similar tape you could mark lines and use blue or green painter’s tape.

Now to the stenciling! We measured to locate the center of our large inner rectangle and centered one of the cloverleaf elements over it. This ensures that your symmetrical pattern will end the same at opposite edges. I used our new larger 2″ stencil brush to stencil the whole design first with Old White Chalk Paint. The Chalk Paint covers very well, but it did take two passes to get full coverage with the white. Fortunately, the Chalk Paint dries SO quickly that you can go immediately back over it. This isn’t possible with latex paint-you must let the first coat dry so you don’t lift it off by going back over it too quickly. Of course, I used a dry-brush method with the brush, meaning I dipped just the tips of the bristles into the paint and offload a bit onto paper towels before stenciling.

The Duck Egg Blue color was then stenciled right over the Old White, JUST in selected areas of the design. In order to avoid the hassle of taping off the pattern to isolate this area, I simply switched to a smaller, 3/4″ brush which allows for more control. You just have to be careful as you near the edges to keep the bristles from creeping in the areas you want to remain white.

After a few repeats like THAT I decided to try for a speedier method. The dry brushed method looked fabulous, but I was in a time crunch, as always! I switched to a roller/brush combo that worked quite well with the Chalk Paint! After offloading the roller slightly (again on paper towels) I used a light pressure to roll the wet paint onto a portion of the stencil repeat.

Then, while the paint was still wet, I used the brush to smooth and swirl it out on the surface for the first layer. This was definitely faster, but I did have some paint seepage here and there which I touched up easily with Graphite at the end. Once I switched to this technique I just continued on doing all the white and then went back and replaced the stencil to apply the blue.

Next up! The stenciled border. The Classical Border and Corner stencil is perfect for this because it comes with a corner tile piece that gets stenciled in the corners and the border design can simply run in between. These were visually centered in the corner area and stenciled in the Graphite Chalk Paint again.

To finish off the border with a nice clean edge, simply use the edge of the corner piece to mask off and protect the area, leaving a nice open space that mimics the stencil “bridges”.

The border design was centered in the space between the corners (simply mark the center point and place a central element right over it) and then stencil with the repeat until you hit the corner. This way, your design will naturally end at the same point on opposite corners.

I wanted to bring a bit of the Duck Egg Blue Chalk Paint color into the border pattern so used a dry-brush technique to shade it just around the outer edges of the flower petals.

Voila!

For the lacy edge, I positioned the Florentine Damask stencil at the same point each time. Notice that tape was placed over the border area to protect it from having Old White paint creeping into the black parts of that design.

I began by stenciling on either side of the corner first and dry-brushed on two quick layers of Old White Chalk Paint. Once I had my corners done, I spaced the damask repeats out equally along each side between the corners. On the long edges I was able to stencil 5 repeats total, and 4 repeats total along the short edges. How much space you will have will depend on the size of your floorcloth and it’s best to measure plot it out on paper beforehand if you are doing a different size than our 8′ x 10′.

I could have left the corners as is, but wanted to add a little more detail, so I flipped the stencil around and played with it till I found a nice “fit”. Then I isolated that area with painter’s tape and stenciled in the finishing touch!

Happiness! I love this combination of colors and patterns, which would also look super fab on a ceiling or tablecloth, I think. To protect my lovely floorcloth I used two thin coats of Annie Sloan Lacquer. This is a matte, water-borne finish that is designed to work with the Chalk Paint-particularly over concrete floor surfaces. It is very thin, and penetrates the paint surface to provide a highly durable finish.

It was quite dirty after being walked on at the Home Show, and I was able to clean it up nicely with a Mr. Clean Magic Eraser without any ill effects to the paint finish! Unfortunately the cheap, thin vinyl did get some tears in it here and there. Like I said above….buy good, thick, vinyl-or paint directly on your floor or traditional floorcloth canvas-available here! For another cool idea for a hand painted vinyl floorcloth, check out this Pinterest pin!

I hope you enjoyed this floorcloth idea and tutorial! Let me know….

One of my favorite things about designing stencils to share with the world is getting to see how our customers use them in their homes and creative projects.  All this internet interconnection makes it even easier to enjoy these rewards-and to share them with others. I truly love and appreciate it when people “share” their stencil art on our Facebook Page. It’s like instant gratification on steroids! This past week there were some particularly NICE photos posted, so just in case you missed them, here’s a visual recap…

Nichole Blackburn of Celadon Style recently completed a large commission at Bel Bambini, a high-end baby boutique in Newport Beach, CA.  Nichole completed 20 different original and creative murals and decorative schemes throughout the store to coordinate with different nursery collections. Here, she used our Grand Damask stencil in a stripe pattern to create a romantic graphic look.

Former textile artist turned decorative painter and muralist extraordinaire, Carmen Benoit,  is always to nice to comment on our Facebook pages and posts, so I’m thrilled to share some of her lovely work on a grand ceiling. Carmen used our Delicate Floral Damask all over this tray ceiling and finished it off beautifully with the Oriental Brocade Frieze border pattern. This looks like SO much work, but what a STUNNING effect!

Sylvie Bilger of Metamorfaux (top photo) is an amazing person and artistic talent who I met recently on our last Moroccan painting adventure to Peacock Pavilions. She was such a joy to be with and I am thrilled to be sponsoring Sylvie’s space at the upcoming Holiday House NYC event to benefit the Susan G. Komen foundation for breast cancer research. Sylvie is very modest, so she probably won’t tell you that she trained at an important decorative finishing academy in Europe and her first job had her working at the Palace of Versailles, but I think that deserves a major SHOUT OUT! Sylvie is currently completing two amazing hall spaces in the showcase house with a combination of stencils and Modello patterns pulled from our Moroccan stencil collection.

On a much smaller scale, artist Kathryn Donatelli shared a table top that she enhanced with wood stains and one of the designs from our Architectural Scroll Set.

Another fellow Moroccan traveler, Cindi Rowley of Cindy Rowley Designs recently shared a cabinet furniture finish using Annie Sloan Chalk Paint and our Ornate Italian Panel stencil. Cindi embossed the pattern for a raised effect which is highlighted by the lovely antiqued wax finish.

Another Chalk Paint furniture stencil project was posted by Kristin at Chi Chi Studio Designs. This is a super pretty blog by a darling  Mississippi girl and this dresser stenciled with Paris Gray and Pure White and our Small Chez Sheik Moroccan stencil totally rocks, IMHO! Oh, and by the way, Royal Design Studio is now officially the stockist for Annie Sloan Chalk Paint in San Diego County, but I haven’t officially announced it yet, as I am trying to get all my ASCP ducks brushes in a row.

And now for the BIG finish!! It’s the Chez Sheik Moroccan stencil again-this time in the larger version.  When I saw these pictures posted on our Facebook Page wall today by Haneen Matt, I thought they were the work of a pro decorative painter. I was already SUPER impressed by the color choice and stylish props, but then I found out that she is a very talented homeowner and I was super, DUPER impressed. How about you??

So-there you have the week in review, and now you know how much I LOVE it when peeps share their stencil photos…….so…….I’m just suggesting……and letting you know that our Facebook page is right here. Have a lovely, creative weekend!

A couple of weeks ago, I shared some fresh new stenciled looks with some of our classic stencils. I have some more great updated stencil looks to show you today. Hopefully it will spark some ideas and get those creative wheels turning!

The Oriental Brushstroke Chinese stencil is a series of individual fanciful bird and leaf elements that you can scatter at will over a wall to create a loose, painterly wallpaper effect. Here, it looks very soft in shades of blue, but you can use it in metallic colors over dark backgrounds for very dramatic effects too!

A border stencil can be perfect for adding just the right touch of color and design to spark up a plain wall. The Elegancia Border stencil is shown here above a step-in tub. Notice how the gold color ties in with the bath fixture and really warms up the wall. Simple, but effective. If you wanted to add more pattern, this design coordinates with our Elegancia Allover stencil.

Another area to try a wallpaper effect with stencils in on the back wall of an open bookshelf or china cabinet. Here, the Falling Feather stencil is perfect for creating a casual, yet custom effect. This is another fun stencil for scattering across a wall, but would be great on a floor, furniture, or fabric project as well.

The Moroccan Hexagons border stencil can also be repeated to create an allover pattern, as shown here. This pattern is perfect for an entry hall or bathroom wall. Using stencil brushes makes it easy to paint the tile pattern in multiple colors.

Our classic Japanese Cherry Blossom stencil set takes on a fresh, modern vibe in a yellow/gray/cream color scheme. Individual branches are fun to scatter and stencil. Shown in a laundry room setting this design works great in bathrooms, bedrooms, even nurseries!

One of our most classic and popular designs for many years, the Florentine Grille Border stencil comes in three sizes, so you can use it for everything from a ceiling freize to a small furniture stenciling detail. Here the medium size is shown centered and stenciled on drawer fronts in boldly contrasting colors for a clean, contemporary look.

Another pattern that is available in multiple sizes is the allover Victorian Grillwork stencil. This classic floral trellis is perfect for furniture stenciling. The larger version is shown here stenciled on the side of an armoire. It’s a perfect romantic look-yet not too fussy!

I hope you enjoyed this stencil re-fresher. Perhaps you have some older stencil patterns laying around and maybe now are inspired to try them anew in some updated colors. That’s what is so great about stencils! They can take on a whole new attitude with simple changes in color and application. Happy Painting!

Fabric stenciling is an easy, fast, and fun way to create some custom patterned projects around your home. I recently shared a great stenciled Roman shade project that Jen at Tatertots and Jello did with our Chain Link stencil  in this post. Jen does some really lovely DIY projects and I was thrilled to see her latest stencil project post using Royal Design Stencils on fabric napkins from Target to create some chic, coordinated pillows for her kitchen banquette.

Jen used our Chain Link stencil again, and this time paired it with the Endless Circle Lattice stencil. Martha Stewart has recently added her name to a line of new decorative painting products from Plaid, which Jen also used, though any fabric paint would suffice. Gotta love Martha…..

Look how adorable these pillows look on the black checked fabric!  Thanks Jen, for yet another inspiring project! We are enjoying your new stencil addiction!!

Well, summer has come and gone (OH SO quickly!) once again. The kids are back in school and this is traditionally the time of year when lots of people’s thoughts turn to home decorating projects. After all, the holidays are approaching and fall is a great time to freshen things up a bit! We have some freshening up projects going on around here-Royal Design Studio and Modello Designs website redesigns to be exact. Even this pretty but aging  blog. It’s a ridiculous amount of work, but going to be SO worth it…..someday…..soon…..I hope. So, I’ve been doing some housekeeping at Royal Design Studio. Trying to figure out which stencil patterns to “let go” and which to keep. I’ve been selling some of these stencils since the mid 90′s and some of the color and finish representations are looking a bit, well, dated. But just like that old piece of boring brown but highly functional furniture, many of these stencil designs have stood the test of time and could continue to do so if they just had a fresh coat of paint and some perkier colors added. And so, here you go! Some refreshed classic stencil patterns from Royal Design Studio….

Our Granada Border Stencil looks very cool and current stenciled in white as a backsplash pattern over a chalkboard paint finish.

The Delicate Floral Panel stencil pattern is generally used as a wall stencil, but it also makes a great furniture stencil when used in the panels of a large armoire.

We have a small series of stencils inspired by the tragically romantic ruins of Pompeii. This Botanical Column Stencil , with its delicate vines and birds works equally well in other romantic settings. This wall stencil repeats vertically and can be used as a single element of wall decor or repeated around a room for a patterned stripe effect.

Our Large Rosie motif stencil has an chic, Art Deco look. It’s adorable for nurseries or children’s room, especially when stenciled in shades of lipstick pink!

The Brocade Border Stencil has been one of my favorite stencil patterns for years. I love the delicate vine and berries. It has an Indian vibe to it, especially when paired with a punched tin mirror.

Another funky floral stencil pattern that works great for nurseries and little girl’s rooms is the Deco Doily stencil from our Modern Options Stencil collection. This two layer stencil allows you to introduce a coordinating color for the background which really sets it off from the wall color.

The Floral Medallions stencil set is based on ancient Middle Eastern patterns, but it looks cool, fresh and contemporary in minty green and lilac colors. It’s very quick and easy to scatter stencil motifs like this around a room for a custom wallpaper effect.

The great thing about stencils is that you can completely change the look and feel of the designs simply by changing the colors. So, do you have some freshening up projects planned for this fall?