My Handpainted Library "Wallpaper" in Photos

Happy May Day everyone! Only a few days until the Crafting A Patterned Home Book Launch Party here at our antique farmhouse. I hope to see some of you here. Photographer Rikki Snyder will be here too to greet you. And I have some friends helping out too. Here is the Eventbrite site for more information. It is FREE. Books and some other things will be for sale (hint, hint - Mother's Day is coming.) You do not need a ticket but I thought it would give me an idea if anyone is coming. 

You all have seen the cover of my new book Crafting A Patterned Home. It features the handpainted wallpaper I did back in 2003. This was before I had a digital camera and before this blog (which BTW started in 2006). But I did have a regular camera and amazingly so - I documented the steps of handpainting the wallpaper. Please excuse the lousy photos - they will help you get the idea. 

I'm not a fan of stenciling - although I know many people love to stencil. I've tried it but the paint always seeps under the stencil and I have a real mess. My handpainting technique is kind of the opposite of stenciling. I use cardboard templates and with a pencil, trace the templates directly on the wall. Here are the templates I made out of Fedex envelopes.

Here is the room before the painting began. 

I began at the corner of the room and traced the center cross along two walls. Then I filled them all in with red paint. 

Next I took the largest shape - the square with the points coming out four sides and traced that in the center of each opening created by the crosses. I painted them an apricot color.

Next I traced the circle motif inside each large square. I painted them in alternating shades of butter yellow and turquoise.

Lastly I added a pointy cross shape to the center of each circle in a pretty orange shade. After all the colors were laid on, I outlined the shapes in black with a small liner brush. 

Here is the room completed. All the directions and templates are in my new book Crafting A Patterned Home. I know my color choice may be too out there for most but with a little experimentation, you can develop your very own colorway. 

In addition, you can find a digital version of this wallpaper design available as wallpaper, fabric or giftwrap in my Spoonflower shop here. It comes in two sizes - as seen here and at half scale.