Royal Studio Design Stencil Review: Ornamental Cartouche

I first fell in love with Royal Studio Designs’ stencils when I found them through an advertisement on Young House Love. Then I painted this dresser using their Chez Sheik stencil, which in turn led to the review you’re reading right now. It’s been several months in the procrastinating making, but I’m glad to finally fill you in on one of my favorite projects yet!

Even though I normally paint furniture, I knew I wanted a bigger project this go round. Spending a lot of time stenciling an apartment wall doesn’t make much sense, so instead I reached out to some friends to see if they’d let me try it out in one of their homes. (No pressure, huh?)

My friend Christine was a brave soul and gave me full reign in her living room. She had a very long wall painted in a taupe color (one of my favorites) that seemed perfect for our experiment. She picked a large stencil–Ornamental Cartouche–and decided she wanted a slightly metallic finish. The Modern Masters Metallics and Metal Effects seemed to fit the bill. Christine decided on the Antique Bronze, I agreed, and then…we waited. Because of Christmas, New Year’s, kids’ schedules, our schedules, and a whole other mountain of other stuff, I ordered the stencil in December but just got around to using it this week!

But that doesn’t matter now ’cause it is D-O-N-E. Wanna see some pictures?

This is the before shot. Christine took a panoramic picture with her iPhone. She’s all gadget saavy like that. And no, there’s not a solar flare going on outside her window. It just happened to be a very, very sunny day here in Nashville.

Here we are less than midway through. I will tell you, I was neeeeervous before I put the first stencil on. I could barely get to sleep the night before. Messing up a stencil project on someone’s living room wall is not something I wanted to experience. But by this point, I was feeling pretty darn confident.

And here we go. My saving grace. The one part of the stencil that I could not have done without. I didn’t know what to call this kind of stencil before I opened the package. It’s not an allover stencil that connects. That’d be easy to line up and overlap. But how was I going to properly space each stencil, since the pattern didn’t physically touch?

That’s what kept me up most of the night beforehand. Even though I had read about matching up repeats here, I didn’t really get it. I thought I would have to measure the space between each stencil every time I painted one on the wall, since it wasn’t an allover design. Does that make sense?

The beauty of the repeat registration is that it eliminates the need for spacing. You line up these marks (which aren’t part of the stencil you’re using–they surround it on the edge of the mylar) with the stencils that have already been done. It ensures that each stencil is perfectly spaced from those surrounding it. You still need a level to make sure everything is straight, but the repeat registration is definitely a huge plus in terms of the stencil itself. (P.S.–this is called a “powdering motif” stencil–it’s a type of allover pattern that is set up in a sort of grid pattern.)

In addition to the registration repeats, the flexibility of the stencil was crucial to executing a cohesive design. The mylar bent every way I needed it to, as you can tell. It ensured that even the partial stencils at the top, bottom, and sides, were perfect. Even Chrstine was impressed by how nicely it conformed to the wall.

Ta-da!!! After 12 hours of level-checking, spraying adhesive, and painting, this is what we finished with! Our mutual friend Kate was gracious enough to come over with her fancy wide-angle lens to capture the finished product. She staged the shelves too. My contribution was to ask that Christine’s sitar be in the photo. Because who else do I know that has a sitar in their house? That’s just cool.

(Kate photographed these last two photos. My watermark is there to protect my stencil work–not the photography.)

From this angle you can really see the soft shimmer of the metallic effect of the paint. I still can’t believe how well it turned out! Christine might find me over at her house one day, just staring at her wall.

Because that wouldn’t be creepy at all.