Every now and again, I will get VERY excited about a stencil design. This is one of them (read on.....). I am still in the midst of redecorating my living room which is coming together rather nicely, but I had this trunk that needed dealing with.
It is made out of chipboard with a foam pad on the lid, and there is nothing remotely exciting about it, but it is excellent for storage which I desperately need, so something had to be done with it. I bought some blue velvet which I decided to stencil with the same blue/black colour I've painted the walls with. I was hovering between two stencils from the fabulous new vintage range: VN140 Dragons, which is a rather fab dragon silhouette, and VN160 Octopus. As soon as the Octopus stencil was designed, I thought it was fabulous and quite art deco. I have always had an idea to do him on a dark wall in a darker colour so that it is quite muted. The pattern would look quite abstract and swirly at first, but when you looked closely, you would realise that it is a whole collective of octopuses. That will have to wait, but in the meantime, I decided to use him on my fabric.
There is just something about him. I've called him "Ned" because he looks like a Ned to me for some reason.
And here is the finished trunk (I apologise for the photo quality, I had to take these quickly with my iphone).
All in all, it was very quick to do. I had 3 metres (about 10 feet) of fabric to stencil which took about 2-3 hours. It is just attached to the trunk with a staple gun so won't win any upholstery prizes, but you can't see that. That only took about 30 minutes so the whole project took at most, an afternoon.
I'm pleased with how my living room is turning out. I have hit a slight problem in that I don't have a sofa organised for it yet (I'm looking for an old one). So I won't show you the results just yet. I am about to start phase two (the dining room end of the room) in the meantime so may just wait and show you the results all at once.
I hope you like Ned as much as I do.
Rachel.
This is absolutely amazing. I love (LOVE) octopi, and this one is gorgeous, now you just have to come to Denver to give some stencil classes.
Posted by: dru | August 07, 2011 at 06:16 PM
He looks like a Colin to me. x
Posted by: jeanne | August 07, 2011 at 06:49 PM
Rachel, after seeing these photos, I think I'm in love with Ned too. Now I'm trying to think where I could fit him into my house.
Posted by: Julie | August 08, 2011 at 09:49 PM
Ned is wonderful! Love the project!
Posted by: Regina | August 09, 2011 at 12:32 AM
Just returned to the UK and am catching up with Rachel's posts on our blog. I have been desperate to use this stencil too! I wanted to stencil large (3 times larger than Ned) octopi in pale greige on an espresso coloured wall. A seafoam coloured background may work well too. I think Rachel's stencilled storage trunk looks fab and I'm looking forward to viewing the progress of her new room. Also, I look forward to finding a surface to stencil giant octopus.
Regina it was wonderful to meet you in Virginia last month.
Helen.
Posted by: stencil helen | August 09, 2011 at 10:01 AM
What a cool look, really fabulous!
Posted by: Vicki | August 18, 2011 at 09:48 PM