No Longer Afraid To Give Stencils A Try!

Hillela G.
by Hillela G.
3 Materials
$10
20 Minutes
Easy
We live in a small, city apartment. It has what we fondly refer to as “character”. And we love it, but it’s very old. Very. And, though overall, it adds certain vintage charm, there is definitely room for some softening touches. We’ve wanted to do something about our bathroom since we moved in. It’s tiled about halfway up and then painted the rest of the way up, no charm or cheer at all.
I’ve been toying with the idea of using a stencil in there for some time, but the idea of ruining it was too daunting for me. I’ve played around with stencil crafts before and have never had consistent success (bleed throughs, blurred lines, not level). The idea of painting the walls and it coming out looking messy, was too unnerving to me.
But then I caught a recent Hometalk Live on Facebook with Sharon (I Restore Stuff) in Australia in -Secret tips and tricks to stencil like a pro! She demonstrated step by step how to avoid making mistakes and I finally felt confident enough to give it a try. I took notes and set out to give it a go!
I picked out a cheerful, nautical stencil and two blue acrylic paints to choose from (I let my husband choose, he went with the light blue.)
Here are the tricks: Make sure to line up the stencil in a consistent fashion.


I chose to make sure that the birds in the stencil were at the edge of the tile next to the tile that I was about to paint.
Use painters tape and secure it from all sides
And here’s the real trick to keep the paint from bleeding through the stencil- keep the brush as dry as possible. Dip just the ends of the brush into the paint and then wipe off as much of the paint as you can (Sharon referred to it as “offloading”) so that the tip of the brush feels almost dry, sounds crazy but it made all the difference!
And then I used the “stippler” method, using an up and down motion- kind of like banging over the stencil.
This helps the paint from bleeding through and being more accurate. It also gave the stencil a bumpy/sandy texture, nautical like the stencil.
I repeated it on every 3rd tile of the outer row of the tiles.
And Voila! A much happier bathroom! This is just the beginning for us. Next, we’ll paint the walls and we’re keeping our eyes open for fun nautical decor. We’re thrilled with this first step to a more cheerful bathroom!
Suggested materials:
  • Stencil
  • Acrylic paint
  • Painter's tape
Frequently asked questions
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  • Laurie Laurie on Nov 26, 2016
    Looks great, Hillella! I'm looking for a stencil (leaf). Where did you buy yours?
  • Debi Debi on Dec 04, 2016
    I just moved into a house, and the person that owned the house before me, painted the tile in the bathroom with regular wall paint. It was dirty looking so I tried to wash it, but the paint came off. The tile is old and has a crack in it and the original color of tile is greenish blue. I want to paint over this, so it looks nice, but what type of paint should i use. Thank you..
  • Gale O'Neal Gale O'Neal on Dec 28, 2016
    Looks great! Did you seal it so you can wipe it down without removing any of the paint?
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