About 15 years ago, I took a trip to Morocco. It’s a beautiful country and I fell in love with the the incredible textures and patterns you see Everywhere. And the colors – Rich jewel tones and colored glass lanterns!  I wanted to bring a little of that into our home and when I saw this Moroccan Starry Night Stencil, I knew it was perfect for our entryway.

Step#1: Let’s Add Color

Our entryway was a sky blue before this pic.  And unfortunately I didn’t take a photo.  But let’s just say, it lacked inspiration. So I chose a mid tone grey for to cover the blue.  I actually took it down the entire hallway to the left to unify the space.  I did two coats to ensure full coverage.

Step#2: Measure & Mask

I measured the width and found my center.  Then I eyeballed the height to begin my stencil and used blue tape to mount it to the wall. With that in place, I then masked off my moulding to the left, bottom and my ceiling.  Not just one row of tape, but 3.  Now this is usually an area that I skip when painting because I like to cut into my corners and around the trim with a smaller chip brush without wasting loads of tape.  But, with a Stencil, masking is important because you will be maneuvering the stencil into those tight corners and the stencil will have residual stencil creme that will rub off onto your ceiling, moulding, etc. if not masked off.  Trust me, you don’t want to skip this.

About 15 years ago, I took a trip to Morocco. It’s a beautiful country and I fell in love with the the incredible textures and patterns you see Everywhere.

Step#3: Stencil from Center out

My stencil still taped up, I completed one full pass with my stencil cream and instantly fell in love!  I mean really. Instant glam.  Being careful when removing the stencil (so it doesn’t smudge your cream) I reposition to the left, matching up the pattern with a slight overlap.  You can see this in the first pic.  Then to the right, then down, until the are no longer able to stencil a full pattern.

Step#4: The Edges

This is the trickiest part of stenciling.  When doing the top, for instance.  I position the bottom of the stencil, use blue tape to keep it in place and then move up the wall with the stencil and tape as close to the top as possible. Half of my stencil was curved up onto the ceiling.  This is ok.  Now starting at the bottom of the stencil, start painting in your shapes.  As you move up, gently push the stencil into the corners and paint in section by section, careful not to shift your stencil.  The stencils are pretty resilient and resist folding so don’t worry about ruining it.  Now, there were several moments, especially on the left side that tucked into my white moulding, that I was tempted to cut my stencil for a better fit.  Thankfully, I resisted.  One, I wouldn’t’ have been able to use the stencil again and two, I would have lost my pattern because it wouldn’t have matched up correctly with every pass.

*Make sure you position your stencil correctly, it was really easy to match up the stencil in the wrong place because this had so many little shapes.  In fact, I did make an error in the bottom left but no one ever noticed but me :)

 

 

Step#5: The Details

This is my favorite part!  The work is done and now you get to ice the cake with all the little pretties.  I moved my entry table and urn back in place, filling with pink roses from our garden.  Love pink and silver together.  This painting, a still life that I painted years ago, doesn’t fit the color scheme but I like the size.  Anything larger would have covered up all that beautiful shimmer and shine.  Using this color scheme was perfect for the entryway because it’s a low light area most of the time.  But when you open the door, the sunlight slides in and gives such movement and fun without being overwhelming.