I have always liked Ikea, and when in need of furniture, this will be one of the first places I will look online.  Although there is no Ikea in Malta, there are several companies that offer a personal shopper service and will buy the Ikea items for you and ship them over.  My favourite is Holland- Malta Service, based in Swieqi, Malta.  The Dutch owners will personally ensure easy transport and delivery of Ikea items from Holland to Malta, for both personal and commercial purposes.

My latest delivery included a Billy bookcase, which I ordered in white, with the idea of doing a little revamp to make it a little more fun!

So what you need is:

• 1 Bookcase, size of your choice
• 1 small paint roller & paint tray
• Paint that you’d like to go on the backside of the bookcase
• Something to cover the floor
• 1 Stencil, pattern and size that you like
• 1 tube Acrylic gold paint (gold in my case)
• 1 plastic tray or dish to put the stencil paint in
• 1 small piece of sponge
• 1 roll of masking, painters or paper tape

How you do it:

First assemble the bookcase as per instructions, but hold off placing on the back of the bookcase yet.  Place your floor cover down and put the back of the bookcase on top of that but upside down.  That way you get to paint the outside of the bookcase back, instead of the white side.  So if you want to change it back to white or change colour later on, this is still an option.  Put some paint in the paint tray and paint the surface with the colour of your liking using the small paint roller.  Let dry and add another coat of paint if you like a better coverage.  When dry, attach the backside of the bookcase to the bookcase as per instructions.

Now take your stencil out of the wrapping and carefully place this on the spot you want to stencil.  Stick it to the bookcase with masking tape, so it fits flush with the surface. If there are areas you don’t want stencilled, please use more masking tape to keep these areas clean. If you use blue painters tape or paper tape there will also be little chance that your surface will be damaged when removing the tape.  If you find the tape too tacky, stick some to your t-shirt and pull it off, so it looses some of its stickyness.

Add some paint to the plastic tray and dip some on your piece of sponge.  I prefer to use a little paint and layer it on, instead of adding a lot of paint to my sponge.  This will prevent the paint from ‘bleeding’ everywhere and smudging.

Now carefully and  lightly dab the paint on your stencil using a ‘stippling’ or up and down motion to imprint the stencil on your furniture.  In this case, I decided to avoid a swirling motion in which you move your brush or sponge with paint from left to right.  My stencil was rather detailed and fine and I wanted to avoid moving the more fragile edges of the stencil and thus have a more clear, sharp and prettier pattern.  Once you have covered the stencil in paint, check that you didn’t miss any spots and everything that is covered is covered properly.  Leave to dry a little bit before lifting the stencil carefully.  Repeat the above as often as you like.

And then you end up with something like this – I’m very happy with my first stencilling experience, I had a lot of fun.  Are you stencilling?  What is your experience?