New House Project: Custom headboard

Ok, here is our next project. Now that you all have mastered your freezer paper stencil technique with your custom pillows, I'm sure this will be a cinch! Right? Right!

Here is Ellen's big girl room as it started. Doesn't really look that bad here, but mostly because you can't see the broken window panes / hole in the wall / 15 bumper stickers on the door, hear the wasps buzzing inside the room, and feel the already chewed gum inside the closet. A teenage boy lived here and I'm imagining his mom said, "Sure, honey - go ahead and tear down the crown molding (only room without it), paint the walls a really dark color (go ahead and be sloppy about it), and put stickers wherever you want". Ok, then.

Her full Big Girl Room isn't finished (will it ever be?), but I've had this headboard project brewing for a long time in my head. In fact, I had already ordered this headboard and planned it out for our old house before we even considered moving, then, you know, some other projects got in the way. 

I grew up in a room with charming, matching, twin beds that I loved. I always wanted Ellen to have a twin bed and maybe someday I'll find the perfect pair of vintage twin beds for her room. For now, though, one is just right to allow plenty of room for playing / mess-making. I love the look of metal bed frames, but they sure don't seem very comfortable for leaning up and reading and such. This is my compromise. 

I searched for a long time for the perfect upholstered headboard, and even considered making it myself, then I found this one online at Walmart, of all places, and I thought it would really fit the bill. And, was the right price! It shipped for free to the store and required just a little bit of assembly. I'm now remembering that it didn't come with any hardware, which they promptly mailed me, and then when I finally put it together 6+ months later we had a lot of challenges getting the holes / screws / washers to line up with our bed frame, so it required a trip to the hardware store and some ingenuity. Par for the course around here. (Bedskirt tutorial here).

My intention was always to slipcover the headboard so it could be, 1. customized and 2. washable. I bought some white cotton duck fabric on sale at JoAnn and planned to make it myself (ha!), then thought better of it (and waited long enough) that my super-duper slipcover gal made it for me when she came for another project (stay tuned ....). Yes, I know you can get really great slipcovered twin headboards from Pottery Barn and the like, but they were really more expensive than I wanted because I knew I wanted to paint it (i.e. didn't want to screw it up) and I kind of tend to change my mind (she says sheepishly ...). 

My inspiration for this project came from Design Sponge - Lydia's Embroidered Headboard. Way back in 2009, before Pinterest (!), I printed and saved this picture and really hoped I could use the idea some way. I knew I couldn't embroider it ... freezer paper stencil to the rescue!

I Googled until I found a picture of a "vintage iron twin bed" that I liked and thought was simple enough to draw / paint. I'll go ahead and tell you that this project caused me a lot of brain damage and was not nearly as easy as planned. It was almost abandoned. BUT - learn from my mistakes and you, too, can do it!

I rough-sketched the picture from my computer, then measured the headboard and laid out strips of freezer paper, overlapping, and stapled them together. I don't think I taped them because I was concerned about the ironing step. I drew the picture to scale as much as I could, trying to center it on the paper. As you know, I'm OCD - there was a lot of erasing and re-drawing and erasing and re-drawing here.

And ... here comes the nightmare. I cut everything out with a sharp knife (use cardboard underneath) and taped it back together with painter's tape to keep it organized. Do not do this. 

See why? This is what you get. It was a nightmare. All that paper curls up and you can't make heads or tails of it. I almost jumped ship here and was (seriously) going to paint it by hand. The problem with that idea (well, one problem among many) is that painting on cotton duck with a normal brush does not leave a crisp edge like the stenciling does. (Also, it does look like I taped the backs of the freezer paper with painter's tape - I think I peeled it off in the ironing process). 

My advice would be to cut out piece by piece, ironing as you go. Start with the smaller pieces and things in the center and work your way out to the edges. With Betsy's help / moral support, I did finally get it all back together and ironed on to the slipcover. I also simplified the design a bit in the process - straight / straight-as-possible lines are key: 

Then, the fun part! I just used regular black fabric paint that I got at Michael's. I had 2-3 little bottles and used 2, I think - it soaks up the paint and you want a nice, dark line. (Put some paper or something inside the slipcover to soak up any bleed-through).  I like using those small 1-inch foam brushes for this kind of thing.

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Just wait until the paint is dry to the touch to peel off the stencil - it's the most satisfying part! I let it dry for a few days, or if there are some instructions on your fabric paint about setting the paint - do that. 

And, here is the final product! I know this picture isn't great (Ellen's first night in her Big Girl Bed), but if I waited until I remembered to get a nice picture with her bed made, well, never gonna happen. I'm happy with how it turned out - very close to what I imagined. I realize her room looks a little institutional here, but it will all come together at some point and I'll show you the rest! Someday ...