The painter was a sub-contractor on a large remodel of kitchen and 2 baths, and painting of the entire 1st floor. I ended up having my contractor fire him before he was completely finished, and the contractor also made him cut $500 of his final bill for the problems he caused. I was planning on heading to Joann's or Michael's this weekend. Thanks, Pam

Well, the first thing you really shouldn't be using a sponge brush. You should be using a nice firm flexible bristle stencil brush, one with lots of bristles and has a nice chisel edge. 2nd when you obtain a good stencil brush you should dip your bristles straight down into the paint "JUST ENOUGH" to get the round head of the stencil wet with paint. The next IMPORTANT thing you need to do is "OFFLOAD" the paint onto some folded paper towels to get rid of most of the paint. You only need to have a very small amount of paint left in the brush. Practice on some posterboard first to get the feel and movement. You can tap lightly, pounce or lightly swirl the paint. You need to build up the depth of color instead of trying to accomplish this the way you have been doing. Practice some before you begin your project again. You can also practice some shading and highlighting as well.

Something that I have done in my sons room, that requires little artistic ability, is I have purchased 3-dimensional stars from a crafts store, painted them with yellow paint and then glow in the dark. Then I attached string of varing lengths to each star and then attached each string to the ceiling. It looks like stars floating in the air. He also has a giant bee that is made of 3-d puzzle pieces. An idea would be to go to a crafts store and purchase butterflies, birds, etc. and do the same thing. If you dont want to go thru the trouble of painting then buy puzzles that are already "colored". Then attach string to the puzzle and hang it. I think this approach would look a ton better than stickers! The butterfly below is a 3D puzzle I found on the internet. Its at the link below. I know this is a horrible photo but if you look on the left side of the picture in the yellow light coming off the lighthouse it looks like a huge bug. Thats actually a 3d bumble bee that is hanging from the ceiling. In the photo it looks like its directly on the wall but actually its about 12 inches away from the wall. Its also cool because my son is into shadows and the puzzle makes neat shadows on the wall. Here is a link that might be useful: 3d butterfly

Hi Christine, It is nice to see a new "face". They are products for water color artists, can't give you a brand, but they are called RESIST or something like that. If you go to Hobby Lobby they can help you find it. Anyway... place your stencils how you want the wording to be and paint the resist over the whole stencil area. Then you paint the dresser, over the resist and everywhere else you want the paint. When dry the resist will come off when rubbed with your finger, a rag or whatever. I would practice on a piece of wood first, but it should work out just fine. Please, show us your finished dresser. It sounds like it will look lovely. Joan