Design Inspiration. Planet Stencil Library.

VN7 Chain Lightning stencil, worth another look.

I never tire of seeing our VN7 Chain Lightning stencil. I enjoy seeing our customer's pictures of their finished projects with it. The stencil has appeared in a film set, some rather famous people have purchased it and it is one of our more popular pins on Pinterest.

Rachel E stencilled it in the lounge of her Art Deco home, we featured it on our blog in 2014 and people all over the world seemed to love it! I felt that it was worth another showing off. The film set designers and one of the famous people chose to stencil it in the same colours that Rachel had used; which were Sunset Gold from The Stencil Library stencilled onto a blue/black wall covered with a Farrow & Ball paint, it looks gorgeous in pale colours too. Today a Sunset Gold and a VN7 Chain Lightning stencil left our packaging desk for a new home overseas.

The stencilling can be applied with a foam roller or a large stencil brush. VN7 is a tough stencil and you can get a lot of wall space decorated with it.  It is a good choice for ceilings too because the design is robust and there are no floppy bits! 

Bon voyage, Chain Lightning. I hope that you and your new owner create fabulous finishes.

Helen.

Art Nouveau at The Musee Carnavalet

 

There are many fine examples of Art Nouveau decoration that remain in Paris, this is one of them.  The room is housed in the Musee Carnivalet.  I was told that this interior was once a pharmacy and maybe an informed reader could confirm or deny whether is is true. 

Look at the moldings, the peacock, the carving, the painting and that gorgeous mosaic floor.

There is a mass of scope for using stencils when decorating in the style of Art Nouveau.

There are peacock motifs, water lilies and masses of flower stencils within our collections;

As well as motifs we make border and repeat pattern stencils too. This stencil of a peacock is OTT53 and can be ordered from our Ottoman Range but most of the suitable designs are in our section of Art Nouveau stencils. Decorative stenciled borders are a fairly essential component when recreating the look of Art Nouveau wall decoration and here are two examples.

Border DE173

and Border DE202 

However, a water fountain is not essential. The Musee Carnavalet is situated on 16 rue des Francs-Bourgeois and I recommend it highly. A previous post from my visit there showed Art Deco Exoticsism with a chunck of Chinoiserie thrown in. How could you resist?

Helen

alternative colour ways for Chinoiserie panel stencils

 
Rachel spent a day at Abbotsford in Melrose.

This Chinese wallpaper can be seen there. Her boyfriend took a picture and sent me it, which prompted me to stencil a green Chinoiserie wall using stencils CH2 to CH4.  I have used these stencils many times and kept meaning to do a green wall, this was just the impetus that I needed.  This was my green wall...  

I have tweaked the colour balance on the pictures to offer other alternatives to show you.

 

Here are more colour alternatives from previous projects using the same stencils. 

 

Colour could be forgone and substituted with texture.

This is a detail from a large wall of polished plaster that I created with plaster specialists Armourcoat UK and interior designer George Bond. Click on the image to see more detail.

One set of stencils, so many decorative possibilities.

Helen.

Painting a beach themed room

I have been out of the office this week painting a beach themed bedroom and it has been a pleasant change to be painting rather than writing about it.

The room has to evolve with its young owner and she gave me lots of ideas to work toward.  I  had been planning to do bands of colour to reflect sand, sea and sky.  My young client would add the beach theme to the room with her toys, pictures and models that she builds.  Then I saw an advert for Fendi in Vogue. I thought that the colours used in the ad would be an easy match for carpet and textiles so I set about simulating the idea onto a practice wall in my studio.

The wall was painted a soft white. Acrylic glazes in several shades of blue were painted over it to make an impression of the sea. We all liked the result so I set about painting the real walls.

Three of the walls featured calm waters where patches of colour drifted into each other.

The fourth wall had rolling waves that were applied with a softer brush.

Although I was working fast, the colours and the action of applying the paint as waves was calming. All of me was behind the brush strokes not just my arm.  This was so therapeutic to create. The tiniest amount of glitter glaze was applied along some of the waves.  When the sun shines, the waves sparkle. 

Once the beach cabin furniture is in place we will work on the soft furnishings.

 
I am revisiting the practice wall in my studio to experiment with our new seagull stencil. In the future it may be applied to a painted blind and some fabric for the beach bedroom. I hope that when all is finished, the room will bring much enjoyment to the young lady that will live in it. I have certainly enjoyed my part in helping her to achieve her wish of a seaside themed room.

Helen 

Simple and effective stencilling

This simple yet very effective wall is stencilled using a gothic style design (GMT69) from The Stencil Library. The walls are painted with Crown emulsion paint and the picture is from their brochure.  I thought at first glance that the stencil had been reused on the cushion covers. This motif is a good size for a cushion project and a squirt of fabric medium from Golden Acrylics into the paint would make it machine washable.

The paint used through the stencils is Striking from Crown Paint and the wall behind the motifs is coloured with Rebel.  I have used Rebel quite a lot recently as it's a good rich black.  For those that prefer a very dark grey/barely black Crown has a paint called Little Black Dress which is also rather good.

The stencilling can be applied with stencil brush or foam sponge.  To get a similar look to the picture line up the side of the stencil with the edge of the wall. Determine where the central motif will be.  In this case it was just above the mantle, measure the spacing in both directions from that one.  Once the positions of the motifs are worked out the stencilling should be a quick project.

I think the result illustrates an elegant focal point for little financial outlay. With care the stencil can be re used many times and could go on to decorate another room.

If black and gold colour schemes are not to your liking you might consider white stencilled motifs over blue, cream over taupe, crimson over hot pink?

Helen.

Get the look with Japanese style stencils

I was leafing through one of my favourite books Chinese Style by Bradley Quinn and was struck by how much of the decoration within it's pages could be recreated in our domestic and commercial spaces by using stencils.

Photo by Jan Baldwin from Chinese Style by Bradley Quinn.

Japanese style stencils can be bought from many stencil companies.  In this 'Get the look with stencils' feature I'll show some that could help create a similar roomscape to the one above.  To start with I have picked Geisha. 

A stencil allows you to apply any colour that you like through it, so if you don't like the choice in the illustrations it does not matter. The wall in the photograph appears to feature just two colours, a light and a dark one over a mid tone base. Geisha is a motif stencil and my next suggestion is a repeating design called Geishas.

Remember that a stencil may be used over many surfaces, not just the walls. Both of these gents could work well in our 'get the look' Japanese style room. You can find them by following the Geisha link.

Cherry blossom stencils are another lovely way to add Japanese style decoration and I have featured them many times on Design Inspiration but I don't think I have featured this one. 

 

It is from the Vintage Collection in the new Stencil Library site. Find it in the Eastern Influences section.

I had not forgotten the splendid fabric in the photo.  Similar patterns can be found amongst toile and damask stencils, or by typing 'damask' into the search base of most stencil companies web sites. There are 32 entries for damask on mine.  A brilliant resource for finding decorative stencils is Stencil Search, they offer thousands of stencils and related products from many stencil manufacturers around the globe. They also have a blog and a featured stencil artist section. 

There are second hand copies of 'Chinese Style the art of living' by Bradley Quinn for sale at online book stores in case you want to treat yourself. I can not imagine why anyone would want to part with it.

Helen.

 

 

On reflection

We get asked to design stencils of many unusual things at The Stencil Library.  Refelections on water was not one of them,  Chips designed this one because he wanted to.

If I had a waterside house I would love to do this.

Actually, if I had a modern house with large windows and straight walls I would love to this.

 As I have none of these I just made lots of roomsets with reflections stencil and hope that it inspires you to decorate with it. It's code number is VN04 and you can find it in the Pure Pattern section of the Vintage Range at The Stencil Library.

The wooden gull worked hard that day.

Helen

 

New Ostrich Stencil

I am so excited that I can finally start showing some of the room sets that I stencilled using designs from the new Vintage Collection from The Stencil Library.  They are now available for sale. Making his debut is VN158 ostrich , certainly this guy does not keep his head in the sand,

otherwise I would not find my house keys.  

If you follow the link to the ostrich stencil you will see the most gorgeous octopus stencil on the same page. I am really looking forward to creating with that one!

Helen.

 

Another big number

Following my post about large letter and number stencils, here is another take on the idea.

This was one that I stencilled at a nursery in Durham City.  The idea was that the children could learn whilst they traversed the stairs. E had an elephant stencil, F was a footballer and H had a stencilled horse jumping over it.

Helen.

'Check' out our new gingham stencil

Gingham is one of the perennial design favourites for many.  Here is our stencilled interpretation of it.  Firstly I intended to stencil a classic blue and white gingham pattern.  Then I was tempted by white and green.  Black and cream was another strong possibility. One of the many advantages of stencilling over many decorative applications is that there are so many colours from which to chose. However seeing as the wall was already pink and I was short of time and energy I decided to keep the background colour (from Crown Paint) and stencil it with bright purple. 

When stencilling an allover repeat such as the VN108 Gingham one should start from a straight line.  I am hanging a plumb line next to the edge of the stencil to help align it 

Paint rollers, foam mushroom or a large stencil brush would all be good applicators for a design such as this.  I chose a small paint roller.

When stencilling a large square it is advisable to roller from the edge into the shape rather than risk pushing paint under the edges. Much of the paint on the roller should be worked off onto scrap before transfering through the stencil. The paint should be moist not wet.

Line up the next pattern repeat by positioning the printed part of the design over a previously stencilled area.

Gingham can make a fresh addition to walls, floors or furniture in many parts of a home. I chose to show it as a bedroom

and a kitchen.

 
We also have rather natty tartan or plaid stencil available in our vintage section, so if gingham is not for you, you may like to view  the tartan stencil.  There more are 'fabric' pattern stencils in this range. 

Helen.

How to create a stencilled Print Room

The original Print Rooms date from the 18th century.
Many grand English houses had a room in which the walls were covered in collections of prints. They were often souvenirs from the travels of their wealthy owners,
These prints were not conventionally framed and hung, but pasted directly onto the walls. Paper borders were pasted around them to give the impression of frames. Printed swags and garlands added to the decoration.
An instant art gallery!

It is documented that this fashion spread to North America but apparently no original examples survive.

Stencil designers The Stencil Library have revived the original 18th century concept with a 21^st century twist using stencils and photocopies..

In this project Helen Morris co founder of stencil-library.com will show how to create a modern day print room using stencils and photocopies.The Stencil Library offers 24 Print Room stencils in their collection The designs look good even without prints so that a collection can be built slowly.

 

Select a stencil and the pictures to be displayed.  On most of my examples I have used photocopies rather than photographs. I used my office photocopier which has settings for black & white, full colour and all tones in between.  The 18^th century displays were mounted onto flat painted surfaces but they can be stencilled effectively onto broken colour.  The surface should be smooth.

All my examples have been stencilled using stencil brushes and water based paint.  I take paint onto the tip of the brush and work the barely loaded bristles onto paper towel.  This action results in the paint being damp rather than wet when transferred through the holes in the stencil.  The stencilled image remains crisp and allows me to work fast when setting up pattern repeats.

A light spray of repositioning adhesive on the back of the stencil keeps it in place.

When the decorative frame work has been completed it is time to paste in the pictures.

They have been sized to fit with the stencil frames using the template supplied with the stencil.  I start with a rehearsal and employ the same repositioning product to temporarily display my prints.  Temporary might be the desired goal if the pictures are to be changed regularly.  When a more permanent display is needed I use wallpaper border adhesive.  Make sure all adhesive and air is squeezed from under the print.  This is important if the surface is going to be varnished.  Clean away any residue with a damp cloth.

Gilding material, crackle varnish, texture gels, plaster...

....and hand painted embellishment are all worthy additions to a Print Room project.

Smaller Print Room projects like folding screens and blanket chests make wonderful portable items that may become highly individual heirlooms.

Helen Morris

Tour Rachel Morris' Dressing Room

I have not shown you any of Rachel's rooms for a while and they are a treasure trove of visual treats. Until recently this was Rachel's bedroom and her dressing room was half of the size.  Her vintage fashion collection is now getting so huge that she has had to swap premises with her clothes.

Vintage hats are stacked on shelves or hung on walls

The stencilled pattern is MD51 Zig Zag from The Stencil Library. 

This room is very popular with visitors on our house tours. The young enjoy the retro vibe of the fashions that Rachel displays as art. The older ones recall their mothers wearing similar clothes and older still remember wearing it themselves.  The overspill of Rachel's collection is sold in our stencil shop.

Rachel's use of transparent chairs allow the view to continue through the furniture.

The walls are decorated with stencils in a style reminiscent of Florence Broadhurst.  Her wallpaper designs appealed to Rachel and she knew that the desired effect could be obtained by using stencils and colouring them the way that Ms Broadhurst may have done. 

I want a flamingo in my room!

 

Rachel has exploded three different patterns on the walls at this end of the room. Zig Zag, Spider Chrysanthemum and  Bamboo. The patterns are diverse but all carry at least one of the same colours as their neighbour.

At the opposite end we a see zebra rug and a damask stencilled wall.  Much of the decorated wall is obscured by Rachel's mood board of inspirational fashion, colour and photography. This is the stencil pattern behind it. It is one of many damask stencil patterns from The Stencil Library.

and here is another.

The spider chrysanthemum stencil uses the same colour as the damask one.  Rachel told me it was hellish trying to stencil black onto the purple background as there is little light in the room and she was mostly stencilling at night.  The pattern goes right over the ceiling.

A tiny but functional sewing machine is ready for action along with parcels of fabric neatly tied with ribbon.

Flower motifs are abundant as seen on the lampshade...

...and the drawer pulls.

Vintage jewelry sits on the dresser...

and on the trunks...

...and cases sit on trunks.

Seen enough?  There is more ...but another time perhaps.  Close the door behind you.

 

Helen. 

Dates for the house tours along with information about our book and dvd of The Stencilled Home can be found on this blogs' side bar... Want to know more? email us or leave a comment.

   

The blue Chinoiserie bedroom

I thought it was timely to show you another room in our stencilled home because our 'house tours' start again this month.  The dates are on the left hand side of the page.  Today I'll show you the Blue Chinoiserie bedroom.
Some years ago The Stencil Library created a collection of Chinoiserie stencils based on hand painted wallpapers from the 18th century.  Some were inspired by The Royal Pavilion at Brighton. This guest room was a perfect place to display them. Although the designs are true to the period my choice of colour is not.  The room is dominated by a tall bed, storage is built under it. This is a big room with a comparatively small window so I have tried to maximise light by use of paint, mirror and crystal.  I used silver acrylic paint as the base colour then added burgundy and blue over it. The colour changes in intensity with the light.

 The silk bed cover is decorated with vertical rows of cherry blossom. I used iridescent paint so everything is shimmering, on top of the blossom are random stencilled butterflies and crystals from Swarovski.  Click on any picture to see more detail.

 Butterflies are a re-occurring motif in this room, here they are stencilled onto Roc-Lon fray resistant canvas and used as floor mats.

Feather butterflies are woven into the beads of my home made chandelier.

I have set stencilled glass panels gilded with silver leaf into the recess of the wooden shutters.  The leaf was painstakingly burnished on the underside of the glass until it formed a mirror.  This technique can be learned at our classes.  This chandelier came from Urban Outfitters.

Mirror balls catch the sunlight and throw it haphazardly around the room.

The silver leaf effect has been applied to the drawer chest. The stencil underneath my pug dog handbags is an arc of birds and blossom.The corner cupboard was made from raw pine. I painted it with emulsion paint and used the same stencil employed on the window shutters. The floorboards are also painted with emulsion paint and are criss crossed with a bamboo trellis design.

 I have collected mirrors from family members and second hand shops, eventually I want to cover more of the the wall with them.
This room sparkles when the afternoon sun hits it.   The stencilling is embellished with over four hundred crystals fastened onto flowers and birds eyes. I still have more to fix. 

Every month we host a tour around our stencilled home.  This room is a favourite with many visitors.  I'm rather fond of it too.

Helen. 

Happy Christmoose

Okay, it's probably a reindeer antler stencil and not moose antlers at all but I could not find a festive pun for deer. My tableau started with an antler stencil from the CrownPaint/RCA collection at The Stencil Library.

It is stencilled onto fibreboard painted with matt emulsion.

Firstly I placed antlers in the kitchen,
 
Hmmmm quite nice but more useful if I could hang things from it.

Aha much better.  But....I have other stencilled works of art that I want to hang above the cooking range this holiday so I tried it in the dining room.

No one liked it there except for me.

It moved to the panelled room.  That is where we we'll celebrate with the family on Sunday.  Our Christmas day is early this year.

A unanimous decision! We liked the way that the red worked with the black. Baubles were hung from cup hooks on the antlers.

What have I made to display above the cooker in the kitchen?  I'll take a picture and show you.

Festive puns on deer antler stencils anyone.  Here's a dreadful one for UK readers. ANT (ler) & DEC (oration)?  Okay, that was truly hideous..to make up for it I will leave you with this handsome interpretation of the antler stencil by the team at Crown Paint.

Helen.

Four ways to stencil a kitchen

Travel through time with me and see the ever changing face of our stencilled kitchen. Click on any of the pictures to see a larger version.

In the mid 1990's we moved to Stocksfield Hall in Northumberland.  Much of the house has been here since the 1600's.  It has been chopped around architecturally through the centuries.  When we arrived  we moved a couple of walls to create a larger, lighter kitchen, It has eight doors leading from it and is heated by a coal fired range that burns from November to May. Since the initial tweak of the structure  we have only made changes using paint and stencils.

The photograph shows our first decorated kitchen.  We used Designer Honeysuckle stencil amongst others and the room features in our book The Stencilled Home.  This kitchen was my design.

My husband Chips was never keen on it so the second reincarnation was his vision, he introduced a dining table and a more sombre colour scheme.  The stencil was FS4 Tree of Life.
   

Rachel planned the next one and she created the vintage style kitchen based on frock fabric from the forties, the pink chandeliers were the earrings! An all over repeat of parasols and bluebirds enliven the walls and a pink and black herringbone pattern is stencilled on the floor.

 

Now it's my turn again.  I washed a subtle glitter glaze onto the walls, then stencilled a repeat design from our Chinoiserie collection.  The floor was repainted and stencilled with a combination of basket weave and Japanese flowers.  One of the first posts on this blog was a project showing how the floor decoration was achieved.

 

As you will have noticed all the photographs have been taken from the same view point, which will help to give you an idea of what a versatile tool a stencil is. In each shot the walls, floors and furniture have been transformed with paint and pattern applied by a stencil.
Helen  

Di Overton's Plasterpiece

Last October I told you that Di Overton and I were playing with plaster and stencils.  Di is author of the beautiful Designers Block blog and owner of Ghost Furniture.  This was her first attempt at stencilling with plaster.
Pretty good huh? But, this is her second.

When we experimented in my studio we had used a plaster product called Versiplast that I picked up in America.
Di, if you read this please leave a comment to tell my readers what you bought in the UK to stencil your project with.  I can tell you that the stencil she used was LTL12 leaves from The Stencil Library.  The stencil is made up of stem sections and a variety of leaves.  You use as much or little of the design as required. Di's stencilled leaves grew from the lounge area to the kitchen. Notice a tree also grows there.

It was difficult to keep my grubby hands from stroking the walls.  The result is very tactile.

Plaster can be applied through thin stencils and makes a pleasing result, but the texture will not be as dense as the stencilling in these pictures.  Di ordered her leaf design in a heavier film.  This is a service that we offer, but is not yet on our website.  To order a heavy stencil just contact us by email fax or phone.

 Visit Ghost Furniture to see more of Di's artistry and humour.

Helen.

Ornamental Grass Stencil

I have another project to show you in the Larger Than Life series of stencils.  I started the wall with Ornamental Grass in the large size.  I used paint and an extra large stencil brush.  I stencilled the ferny shapes first then some of the fluffy cone shaped ones.  I added leaves wherever I thought they might look nice. The whole process was very speedy.                                                                            

A second row of foliage was applied using the Grass in the small size.

I applied it to the front of this painted utility cabinet then finished up by stencilling a toning floor with DM6 .  DM6 is is a set of stencils and masks from The Big & Bold range.  It includes these chequer board type squares.  I am experimenting with cutting a thicker stencil film at the moment because I think some of the Larger Than Life  range will suit a heavy application of plaster or gel through them.  The heavy stencils would be in addition to and not instead of our usual film.  Is this something you would use?  Let me know. Helen.

Free Flowing Paisley

Our customer behind the glorious "Lavatory of No Restraint" has sent us photos of her latest project.  This time she has created a subtle scheme for her beach house using our IN47 Large Paisley Pack.  I am always thrilled to see what customers do with our stencils not least because they come up with different ways to use pattern.  The free flowing paisley shown here is a perfect example of that.

I always thought paisley had to be used in a formal regimented way, but our customer did some research and found that it tends to show up in two ways: either symmetrical configurations (as I expected) or "more organic, uncoordinated clumps" (my customer's words).  She decided to go for the latter.  The paisley is simply done in white on a lovely sand coloured wall.  The stencil itself is made up of three motifs and has two layers on the main large paisley motif.  In some places she has used both layers, and in others, just a single layer (initially thinking she would go back and finish the layers, but decided she rather liked the look).

  

She feels that the more free flowing layout suits the space and also the house, given that it is a beach house, being reminiscent of the waves.

I think the result is just gorgeous and the rooms looks so peaceful and relaxing.  And I have now seen a new way to use our paisley stencil.  Our customer has promised to send us photos of her next project which is to stencil onto a wall in her daughter's room.  But she has warned me I may have to wait a while as it will take some time to clear a path to the wall that has to be stencilled.  I am sure it will be worth the wait.  Rachel.chandeliers 

Visit Our House: The Adam Style Garden Shed

Happy Halloween!  Although we have a bat and a pumpkin stencil in our range I felt I did not have enough topical designs for a Halloween post.  So....here is our garden shed, resplendent with pumpkin. They were carved by Rachel and photographed by Colin Poole for our Book "The Stencilled Home".  The decoration in the shed was based on the plasterwork of Robert Adam.   I love the work of Robert Adam and one of his many influences was the classical Roman and Greek style.  Whilst Adam was on his 'grand tour' of France and Italy in 1748, the well preserved remains of Pompeii were being discovered.  Spookily enough, I was there two weeks ago and am preparing a post on the murals of Pompeii and Herculaneum for you.

The shed is just the normal common or garden variety.  We lined the interior with hardboard so that we had the smooth surface necessary for such a formal treatment.   The walls were painted with emulsion (latex) paint and the background for the different stencils were applied with contrasting colour.

White acrylic paint was used for all the stenciling.  Most of the stencils can be found here and in our Regency and Empire collection.  All the furniture was gilded with Dutch Metal in gold. Canvas cloth was cut to cover the floor.  The cloth was then painted, stencilled and varnished. The shed is used all summer as a sitting room. In the winter it is filled with mowers and garden furniture.

I did not decorate the shed.  It was a surprise project undertaken by my husband and friends whilst I was teaching in America.  I love it, and I shall leave you with a couple of pictures of the wild flower orchard in which it sits. H.

A Moving Story

My sister is moving!  A few years ago, my sister relocated to rural New Jersey with her husband and daughter.  They purchased a really sweet (and small) 1950's cottage in the midst of the most glorious (and historical) New Jersey countryside.  My sister is very creative and likes to inject her decor with colour, humour and vintage style.  It was not long before I was induced to fly over and help her paint and stencil her cottage from top to bottom (or rather side to side as it is all on one level).  The house consists of a kitchen/dining room, a bathroom, a living room and two bedrooms.  I was there for three weeks and managed to get every room stencilled in the time I was there.  I quite like planning schemes with her because she has such vision and is not afraid to play with colour and pattern.  As they pack up this house to move south to Florida, I thought I would showcase their current stencilled home.

You enter the front door straight into the kitchen/dining room.  My sister loves Art Deco style.  She discovered Clarice Cliff pottery from the 1920's and 30's and it was this that inspired the theme and colours for this room.  The walls were painted a pale grass green colour.  Then we stencilled our Art Deco style house (DE340)in bright red, orange and black as a repeat along one wall.  My sister collects vintage tablecloths and crockery so the bright colours complimented her collection.  The door entering the house is opposite this stencilled wall.   There were plain white blinds at the french doors and we don't do plain!  It was a morning's job to take the panels down, stencil them with our CO17 Polka Dot stencil (from our Contemporary range) in red and black and hang them back up again.

The kitchen/dining room runs directly into the living room.  Inspiration for the scheme in the living room was drawn from vintage travel posters.  Also, because the large doorway is open between the two areas, the colours needed to be complimentary.  Due to the height of the room, we decided to put the main stencilling over the chimney breast which would carry the whole room.  My sister chose an Art Deco repeat (DE322) with trees and swallows (as their house is in the woods) and it was simply stencilled in graphic black.   

Perhaps the most fun room to do in the house was the tiny bathroom.  My sister has always loved our 313 Chorus Girls stencil.  She loves the glamorous style of it and her husband was not at all adverse to having rows of scantily clad women in his bathroom.  There were only two walls we could put this stencil on.  A single row of girls were stencilled around the vanity.   And on the opposite wall, several rows of girls were stencilled over the entire wall for a full company of chorus girls.

My niece is now 3 1/2 years old.  I had decorated her nursery by stencilling large panels of fabrics with stencils from our Japan range including large blossoms and butterflies.  At the time, my sister was living in a rental so could not paint or stencil the walls, but by stencilling up fabric panels which could be hung on the wall, matching blinds and other accessories for the room, the whole nursery looked decorated with colour and pattern.  When they moved, all the panels and fabrics moved with them and they are still being used in her room today.  Of course, now we could also paint and stencil the walls.  Because the fabric panels were bright, we kept the stencilling on the walls quite muted by taking one of the Japanese butterflies (JA125) and stencilling it in silver scattered all over the blue walls and ceiling.  

My sister has recently been making and selling fantastic hand embroidered items (including childrens' clothing and home accessories) with vintage designs.  Her range perfectly compliments her style.  I love the variety of designs she has and one of my favourite possessions is a set of pillowcases she embroidered for me using pin-up girl designs  (which I think is a fair exchange for my stencilling her house).  Her online shop is called Melys Baby.  She happily makes custom items as well.

Now she begins a new chapter in her life as she packs up and prepares to move to Florida where her landscape architect husband has a new job.  She is sad to leave her stencilled cottage, but I reminded her that soon she would be in a new home with loads of bare walls ripe for new stencilled schemes.  I also told her that it wouldn't take much inducement (well, maybe a few Melys Baby items) to get me to come over again when they were in their new home to help plan and stencil the new house.  No doubt, it will be featured in a future post. R.       

Spring is here!

As today is officially the first day of Spring, I thought I would celebrate by showcasing our Swallows stencil as they will be returning from their epic migration soon to come home to roost.  They are always a sign that Spring has arrived around here.  After a week of bitterly cold temperatures, high winds and snow showers, it is a beautiful sunny day here in the North of England and one can certainly believe Spring has arrived.  Our swallows stencil is a sheet of three different sized swallows that you can use in any configuration you like.  We simply stencilled ours with black paint in a swooping arc across the wall.  For the final touch, we applied a layer of gold glitter glaze over the top that is quite subtle but really sings when the light catches it.  Spring flowers are blooming in our garden and all the trees are in bud.  It is nice to see everything "springing" back to life again.  The only cloud on the horizon is that our clocks go forward this weekend which means an hour's less sleep! R.

Pattern on Pattern No. 1

One of our favourite decorating themes is pattern on top of pattern.  Stencils are perfect for creating layers of pattern.  The key to getting the look right without overwhelming a scheme is to get the balance of the two patterns not only right with each other, but also right with the rest of the room.  This is a theme we will come back to in future posts, but for now, we are showing you stencil pattern on top of stencil pattern.  First we stencilled the wall with an all over repeat pattern stencil, CH35 Passion Flower, from our Chinoiserie range.  We wanted the base pattern to be quite strong and rich so stencilled in a burgundy colour that showed up well against the blue wall.  Once the wall was covered with pattern, we were ready to add the next layer of pattern.  For this scheme, we have chosen a motif, a chandelier stencil from our vintage range.  This stencil works well in all kinds of rooms where an added dose of glamour is needed.  We cannot always afford glass drop chandeliers or have the room to hang them so a stencil is not a bad alternative.   A client recently purchased this stencil to repeat down the stairs in her hallway and around her dining room which I know will look fantastic.  The chandelier stencil comes with a length of chain so that it can be "hung" at any height you like whether it is at one height or different heights as it has been done in this photo.  It also comes in three layers: the first layer is the colour of the chandelier, in this case, white (but for on-trend glamour, go for black); the second layer allows you to put the background colour back in certain areas (if you have a stencilled background, you can also put the stencilled decoration back in); the third layer is to add the highlights to the drops.  We chose a paler version of our wall colour.  Note that the chandelier looks great over the background pattern, even though the background has been done with quite strong colours, because it is much larger in scale.  If you had wanted the chandelier to be the predominant pattern, then you could stencil your background pattern in much more muted or tone on tone colours.  If you are thinking about layering pattern in your room, then the key things to consider are the colours you want to use, the scale of the patterns and which pattern you want to emphasise (if any).  If you like this idea, keep a look out for more pattern on pattern inspiration in future posts.

Spike, the cat, does Allium

In a previous post, we introduced you to our cat, Spike.  Here he is again in our Allium stencil roomset photo.  Spike is more than willing to model for the camera (we are sure movie roles are to follow).  He quite often comes to work to help out and after an hour's worth of pen chewing and paper shuffling, collapses into my in-box for a much needed 4 hour power nap.  The Allium stencil is one of Spike's favourite stencils.  Using large motif stencils like this is perfect for impact on a particular area of your wall.  Pattern is very much "in" for interiors, but for a more contemporary take, limit your pattern to areas of your room rather than covering all your walls with it.  This stencil is a 3 layer stencil with an extendable stalk section so you can make your Allium as tall as you like or vary the height of each one as we have done here.  You can make them as bold or as subtle as you like with your colour choice.  We have stencilled our Allium in shades of brown, but for added impact, put them on a bright blue wall.  The layers of the stencil give the Allium depth and look so realistic (despite their larger than life size) that even Spike was fooled.  The Allium stencil can be found in our vintage section on our web-site.  When you are there, you might also want to look at our Fennel stencil too. R

Eye Bending Pattern

We thought we would share this picture of a room set that we recently stencilled.  I am showing it for no other reason than that I love it.  I have this same stencil on a canvas hung on my staircase. When I stare at the canvas colours start to creep into the pattern.  In reality there is nothing there but black on white.  I like the simplicity of the monochrome patterns and the only spot of colour being the chair.  The walls are stencilled with MD14 Pulsate from the Modern Design collection.  The floor shows a new stencil design from the Big & Bold collection.  It should be available in the next few weeks.  A couple of hours after this wall was stencilled we added giant flowers to it....   

This is the same wall with flowers from the forthcoming Big & Bold range of stencils.  The picture now makes me think of dresses in the 1960s.  The model would be wearing a white peaked PVC cap and of course her hair would have been cut by Vidal Sassoon.  This scheme could look great in a kitchen, or bathroom. It's very cheerfulness would make me smile and there is such scope for colourful accessories. H.

The Colour Issue

This month, Romantic Homes Magazine www.romantichomes.com gave a four page feature to one of the rooms in our home. It is Rachel's lounge and the colour scheme was originally inspired by a box of Kipling's Fondant Fancy cakes.

Rachel loves colour, fifties style and the British flag amongst a load of other things. She is a trawler of car boot fairs, flea markets, vintage shops and sites. What Rachel cannot find, she makes. The union flag lamp sitting atop the pile of old Vogue magazines is one of her creations.

Many of the pillows on Rachel's sofa are stencilled with designs from The Stencil Library. She has made others from vintage scarves. I often look out for interesting scarves in charity shops for her, but then end up keeping them. Sorry, Rachel.  A source for buying beautiful cushions in this style is a shop called RE in Corbridge, Northumberland.  We often take a Sunday trip out to RE and the coronation pillows were bought there. Their online shop is www.re-foundobjects.com.  Rachel sells some of her creations nearby at The Stencil Library shop in Stocksfield but her things are not on their web site yet.  Patience. H.

New Trends and White Cat

I recently visited the annual Design Interiors Exhibition in Birmingham, UK.  One of the new trends for 2007/8 was black on black.  That was fortuitous as we had just finished a room set showing gray black stencilling on a jet black floor and walls.  The design on both surfaces are part of our forthcoming Big and Bold collection.  When the range is uploaded to our web site, I will let you know.  Of course, the purrfect accessory for this colour scheme is Spike, the wonder-cat.  No, you cannot have him.

Here we have another gray on black scheme. This time the stencil used on the floor and walls is MD23-L Basket Weave.  It is part of the Modern Design range at The Stencil Library.  All the stencils in the Modern Design range come in 4 sizes.  Go for the larger sizes for increased scale.   H.