stenciled shower curtain!

i'm so proud & excited to share this project with you! it's been a long time coming [& finishing!] & i just love it so much!

i'm embarrassed to tell you how long i've lived with this sad little plain white shower curtain. unfortunately, the internet does not lie. well, you know what i mean. the things you write stick around for awhile... my own blog gives me away. here's a post from april 2007, almost 5 years & 3 houses ago, where i talked about wanting to change up my plain white shower curtain. here it is in our current guest/kiddo bath:
our second bath is tiny with no windows, so i wanted to bring some fun color in with the accessories. my hubs absolutely loves yellow & it reminds me of the happy time when we first met... the only thing i knew about him at all was that his favorite color was yellow & i still wanted to marry him!

little did i know how hard it is to find yellow bath accessories without some kind of duckie theme. i was thinking more chic graphic prints. the bathroom decor actually started 2ish years ago with some bright yellow floral towels  from world market & a fun diamond print yellow & white fluffy bath mat from garnet hill, 2 of my main little decorating splurges when we first moved into the townhome.

back to the the plain white shower curtain. i played around with lots of ideas... sewing ruffles to it, sewing strips of fabric to make big stripes, appliqueing a big monogram on it, & painting a chevron or some sort of trellis/gate/greek key kind of print on it. but nothing was really jumping out at me.

well, when i saw jones design company's stenciled wall, i thought maybe i could pull it off not on a wall, but on my little shower curtain by continually cutting the shape out of freezer paper, ironing it on the curtain to form the pattern, & then painting with fabric paint!

so that is what i did.

i downloaded the stencil & cut out 102 of the shapes. [not all at once- i did a few at a time so it didn't feel so overwhelming.] i used emily's awesome tutorial to place the pattern & iron it all down. the shower curtain was originally a waffle weave, which made it really easy to line up the pattern somewhat centered & then fairly evenly towards the edges. here, i had laid it out to iron more shapes on, they were nearly impossible to see without the already-painted sections showing!

then i spread it out onto a big piece of cardboard on my dining room table one afternoon & started dab dab dabbing the yellow fabric paint on in sections with a cheapo sponge brush, really squishing the paint down in the waffle weave. i used tulip soft fabric paint, which is God's gift to crafting, in the color 'sunshine yellow.' i had one bottle on hand from a previous project & ended up using about 2 & a half of the larger bottles total. not too bad with a couple of michael's coupons! i made sure to do touch ups after the first coat dried before i moved onto the next section.

it took me forever to finish because i had to spread it out on several different surfaces several different times- i did the ironing of the freezer paper shapes on my bedroom and living room floors, and did the painting on my dining room table twice [with large cardboard or a plastic tablecloth underneath] & in the basement on my 'painting table' once.

i decided i wanted to keep a strip of plain white along the top where the grommets are, so i didn't have to worry about trying to iron the shapes or paint around the grommet edges. there was a seam there that made it really easy & i think it helped the overall curtain look much more finished:

when i reached the edge, i was usually able to cut off part of the shape & replace it somewhere else to complete the pattern:

it really didn't take as long as you're probably thinking, although between cutting out all the shapes, ironing them on & then all the painting, i have no idea how long total it took me. if you don't truly love the crafting process, maybe it is more worth it just to drop the $30 bucks for one at target. but i do looooove how it turned out & it's fun to have not only a completely specialized curtain [with no sewing, yay!] but i was also able to use the one i already had. there are, of course, a few little spots where the paint bled just a bit, but not so noticeable that i'm in a hurry to do touch-ups:

overall, i was really pleased at how well the freezer paper stuck to the curtain, but yet were also pretty easy to peel off when i was done & the paint was dry. & they didn't leave any strange or sticky residue whatsoever!

when it was all done, i couldn't wait to get all the 'sticker shapes' peeled off & get it hung up!

 super cute with my yellow damask towels:

 it's definitely not an instant-gratification craft, but it makes me smile every time i see it from down the hallway. it looks exactly like what i intended [which rarely happens for me] & i just can't tell you how much color & spunk it adds to our little windowless bathroom!

my little silver hooks were a bit sad & plain too. so they got a coiled jute treatment to add some texture up in there. took all of 10 minutes & i totally love the change. it was extremely easy since they are so flat & round! i just rolled a little coil of jute, stuck it to the middle of the circle with hot glue &  then kept coiling & gluing until the whole circle was covered. & again, i got to re-use what i already had, but make them better!

all told, i think this is definitely one of my favorite, if not very favorite, projects i've completed to date! let me know in the comments if you have questions or attempt this too, i'd love to see yours!

now, what else can i stencil?