drum roll, please!

well, carmageddon ended up being a non-event as far as traffic here in los angeles (it actually took a shorter time to travel by car than usual this weekend because so many people stayed off the roads!!).... but  i am very happy to say that my carmageddon induced diy saturday at home was a BIG success! it took 10 hours for us to do it, which was a bit longer than i anticipated it would take, but the finished product looks amazing! i LOVE how my bedroom wall turned out. and my partner in crime for doing it was the perfect person to help.... anyone can do this! all you need is a really good friend that has a great "can do" spirit and that you can collaborate with (strong emphasis on teamwork!!!). we bounced ideas off each other throughout the process and it worked perfectly... she is super detail oriented and i am more big picture... it also helped that this friend happens to be a graphic designer in the record industry who moonlights creating murals on walls of kids rooms.... oh, and a great party playlist with fun upbeat background music helps tremendously (a dash of michael jackson, mixed in with some prince, abba, lionel richie and hall & oates -among others- always helps)!  oh, and really cute brazillian guys delivering dinner from my local bossa nova restaurant was a nice treat too!

i will be forever indebted to this great gal friend (and neighbor) for helping me out and making me love my bedroom!  i could never have done this all by myself (that would have taken WAY more than 10 hours!)!  scroll down to see photos of the process and the final result! i am so glad i took my idea and ran with it!!

 here's how we did it....

* my friend was able to help me create these great stencils for each color by scanning my original hicks wallpaper sample into her computer, enlarging the design to the size i wanted,  and printing it on heavyweight paper (a perk of her job is having access to a printer that can print this large of a sheet... it saved me money and a trip to fed ex office!).  here is an image of the very first stencil going up. 

* oh and i had these fabulous leopard print polished nails all week (thank you sally hansen!) that sadly were toast the second we started the painting process!

* so, here is how the walls looked with just the first stencils of white paint up... these alone were pretty cute!

* then we added the gold center hexagon medallions... this was the easiest part of the whole process! although the original gold paint i bought was a bust (it should be called martha stewart poop color instead of pyrite metallic paint....) thankfully i had a tiny tube of gold paint in my craft drawer that was a perfect last minute substitute and somehow lasted through the project!  we also started adding the black and realized that it was difficult to use the stencil on it and we would have to do it free hand which could end up looking messy as black is not a forgiving color....  soo at the point of this photo it was after 9 pm and we had been working since 10 am.....

well, i made the executive decision to skip the black and paint over it with white because it was looking really amazing with just the gold and white.... and ta dah!!! here is the finished product.....

and my little arizona flea market find of the black swan lamp looks awesome against the wall!!!

for those of you just tuning in and wanting to know more about me you can by going here... and if you didn't already know... i created a facebook page... check it out and "like" it! and follow me on twitter! 

until next time!

the almost 40 year old intern