Fat Stripes I love you!!

So, this was a random, quick project. Last week I was cruising through the internet and participating in my favorite past time, browsing amazing blogs, and I saw a room with horizontal stripes on a long wall. Well, we have a long wall...I love stripes so Whalla! Here we are...Fatty horizontal stripes! I LOVE THEM!! This room is not quite done yet...I will post pictures of the final detail when it's done.

Before:
{Sorry this is a horrible picture. 1 lamp on, 1 off. "Caillou" on the tv, and McKenna's knees at the bottom of the picture, oh well, it's real life, right?}

After:

I love how it turned out, but I was off my game painting the stripes today. This job should have taken about 2-3 hours, but because I was in a hurry I got to clean up after myself...

Please learn from MY mistakes =)

As I was in the garage looking for the living room wall color that the old owner left for us I found a can that said "bathroom color". My brain said, "oh, the bathroom and living room are the same color"... Since we moved into this house 3 months ago, Iswear, I thought they were the same color so of course I listened to my brain and started "sealing" the tape for that crisp, clean stripe. Until I noticed the paint was not drying lighter...OF COURSE IT WASN'T! Paint never dries lighter, Shelley! Turns out the bathroom paint is NOT the same color as the living room wall color. Thanks to my hubs, I did find the LR wall color and finished sealing the tape to keep from having the lighter stripe leak under the tape.

Next, I was off in la-la land when i was cutting in with the lighter stripe and painted the wrong section. Oh well...that's what "touch up" is all about right? =)

Do you all know the trick to having the clean, crisp, no leaking under the tape, paint line? It's the most amazing, easy trick ever!! My stripes are so perfect they make me want to cry a little! =)

Step 1: {for the perfect clean, no-leaking-paint-line for stripes}: Paint the first color all over your wall. let dry.

Step 2: Tape off your stripes with painters tape.

Step 3: Take the first color {the one you just painted} and paint over the seam of the painters tape that the next color stripe will be covering. This allows the wall color paint to seep up the painters tape instead of the lighter/darker stripe color you are about to paint.

Step 4: Let this "saftey stripe" of paint dry then paint your 2nd color stripe...the results...

A perfect, clean paint line for your sweet striped wall!

Look at that strip up close! Sooo happy...

{it's the little things that make me shed a tear of happiness}

{p.s. thap lamp shade is on my project list. Those babies are getting a makeover real soon!!!}