Lace is one of my favorite things to play with! I have a huge stash of it and use it on all kinds of projects. In fact when I’m going to yard sales or thrift shopping I always keep my eye open for lace curtains. I usually find them for $1 a panel ( you CAN’T buy lace for that cheap in the store). I cut it in strips or in this case use the entire panel.
This particular project was for my own wedding two years ago. I had an idea of what I wanted and my, fiance at the time, helped make it come to life. Below I’ll show you how we made it happen. He built it for me and then I stained and stenciled it. I actually tried one method of staining that took a lot longer and FAILED. I also failed at my first attempt to stencil and FAILED. (face palm) I was getting really nervous and stressed because our wedding was only a week away and I still didn’t have it done! But I’m going to help you out so you can succeed the first time!
He purchased 3x1and 2×4 pieces of wood from Lowes. You can really us any size of wood, it just depends on the look you are going for. He then assembled by vertically placing the three 2×4 pieces of wood for the back and nailing (I recommend screws) the 3×1’s to the 2×4’s.
My Failed Attempt
I’m all about doing things to save money so I found this idea on Pinterest to make my own stain like the one in this link. It’s a non-toxic homemade stain that is made by soaking steel wool in vinegar and tea for a period of time and then painting on. I liked how it turned out, but as you’ll read below I had to re-stain it.
My next fail was trying to use a foam brush to stencil the lace on the wood. I laid a piece of lace on the wood and blotted white pain on. As you can see from the picture it was not looking like lace at all and was time consuming! Lace is very fine and hard to keep in place! It looked terrible!
So we turned over the boards that I had tried to stencil, pictured below, and I only had a few days to get it re-stained and stenciled before our wedding.
Project Success
Because I was down to the wire on time I had to purchase Minwax Stain and quickly re-stained the entire backdrop. Then, I finally discovered that SPRAY PAINTING the lace turned out beautifully and was so easy! I tested it on scrap wood before hand this go around! Luckily I’m a lace hoarder and had another curtain panel to use. The spray paint I purchased was white chalk spray paint from Walmart. I couldn’t find this specific brand to link for you, but I think any will do. I loved the finished product!
The floral frame hanging on the backdrop was made with old fence that I also had been saving for a good 5+ years for the perfect project. I had the vision and my dad built two of these frames for my wedding. I used one here on my backdrop and the other for our engagement pictures to be displayed. I loved them!
***I recently used this display for another project IN my home. I will be creating a post about it soon and linking it here!***
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