Lovely Stenciled Curtains

Materials: Pair of white LENDA curtain panels, black acrylic paint, fabric medium, a couple dense foam rollers, Cutting Edge Stencil’s Harlequin Trellis Allover Stencil, plastic tarp

Description: Last year I started helping my mom design and put together her TV room. But unfortunately (or fortunately for you Ikea hackers out there) we couldn’t find ready-made curtains that we liked. Being that Ikea has the most inexpensive curtains around, I knew an Ikea hack was in order. Here are step-by-step instructions for how we made these lovely stenciled curtains.

First mix the acrylic paint with the fabric medium (2 to 1 ratio). To get even distribution without any blobs, load up the roller with paint, then roller it onto a paper towel so that the roller is almost dry.

Start with a test run on cardboard. I found that light pressure for the first few rolls would spread the paint around and avoid big blobs; as the roller got dryer I increased the pressure. It seemed that less paint and more pressure worked best.

After a test run on a piece of cardboard tape down the curtain panel over a plastic tarp (some paint did go through so don’t forget the tarp) and tape the stencil in the top corner. Using the roller, paint over the stencil making sure not to go over the edges of the stencil (tape along the edges can help prevent that mistake).

Allowing the paint to dry between each go over the stencil, gradually move the stencil along, overlapping slightly with the previous design to match it up. Because it didn’t always match perfectly, I would paint a little and then adjust the fabric under the stencil as I went along so that it would meet the design in the correct spot.

When done painting, let it dry over night. Then iron the whole panel to set the paint, and hem to the desired length. Finally, sit back and enjoy!

See more of the stencilled curtains.

~ Genevieve Chambliss, United States