Stenciled Toy Box

I bought this toy box for H a while back at Ikea, but it was plain white.

Here is the before, with ALL the toys taken out. (He will ignore the toys until I start to put them in, then he suddenly wants them out. It's a fun game.)

Today I decided to personalize it a little using contact paper stencils. I just traced the letters and designs I wanted right off of my computer screen onto paper, then taped that paper over contact paper onto my cutting mat, and cut through both layers with an exacto knife. It's very simple to make a stencil for anything this way, as long as you make sure you put the sticky side of the contact paper down (which I didn't remember the first time, so I had to cut out his whole name over again. Oops.)

Here's the simple outcome...

I used acrylic paint and it did bleed under a bit, but it actually gives it this really cool distressed effect that I love. And the swipe of the sponge brush almost looks like wood grain.

I got the fox shape here. It's a papercutting blog with lots of really cool templates. Papercutting is on my very, very long list of things to try. Anyone trying any new crafts lately?