Use a soft floral vine stencil to create a soft and shimmery, romantic finish. This custom wall finish combines a unique, lightly embossed stencil finish with holographic metallic foil and translucent coloring for a custom wallpaper effect.
Like all of our Royal Recipe Professional Finishes Stencil Tutorials, this finish is designed for the experienced DIYer or professional decorative artisan. This is not a "beginner" faux finish and a basic understanding of artisan finishing techniques is required.
Supplies:
- Royal Design Studio Stencils: Berry Romantic Floral Wall Stencil in Large Size
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Wunda Size, Confetti Hologram Metallic Foil
- Faux Effects® Products: Thick White Sandstone, Venetian Gem Bellissimo Tint Base, Champagne Mist Lusterstone, Faux Creme Colors: Earth Brown, Turquoise, Violet
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Tools: 3/4" Stencil Brush, 3" Stencil Brush, Foam Roller and Tray, Color Shaper, Japanese Trowel, Venetian Trowel
Step 1: Apply a skim coat of the Soft Sandstone plaster mix overall using a hard steel Venetian Trowel. Allow to dry.
Step 2: Apply a second coat of the Soft Sandstone plaster mix, now aiming for a soft, light skip-trowel finish. It is OK to leave some pitting and “open” areas on this layer, depending on how much texture you want to end up with. If you refer to Step 6 you will see that the entire finish will get a skimcoat of Champagne Mist Lusterstone, so any surface texture you leave at this point will be filled in and accented by that following layer. Allow to dry.
Step 3: Use a Colour Shaper tool to stencil emboss the Large Berry Romantic allover stencil with Champagne Mist Lusterstone. The Colour Shaper tool allows you to pull the Lusterstone very tightly (notice the high angle of the tool).
DETAIL: This technique easily and automatically pushes the material to the outer edges of each design element while leaving a “sheer” center, giving instant depth and dimension to the look.
Step 4: Use a sponge roller to roll Wundasize randomly through the stencil. You will want to dampen the sponge roller slightly but wring it out VERY well with a dry rag so that you don’t have any drips. Use a very light pressure on the roller through the stencil and just apply it randomly to the surface. The goal is to just apply the size randomly and spottily to the design area. The size will come “to tack”, and will be ready for foil transfer in about 15 minutes, but you will have a couple of hours, generally, to get good transfer of the foil.
PRO TIP: Colour Shapers are an amazingly useful tool for applying plasters, glazes, waxes and stain though both Modello Deorative Masking Patterns™ and Royal Design Studio stencils. They are made from a highly flexible and durable silicone rubber that conforms easily to surfaces and cleans up beautifully. They are an ideal substitute for metal Japan Scrapers and other embossing tools, and they don’t leave any annoying trowel “lines.” They are also ergonomically easy to hold and work with!
Step 5: Transfer the Confetti Hologram Metallic Foil to the sized areas of the pattern. Cut off a short length of foil, crumple it up and smooth out slightly. Place it lightly on the surface and use a large Stencil Brush to tap the foil lightly. Do a little and check to see that amount of transfer you are getting. If you want more transfer, press harder. For less transfer, press lighter. Holographic Metallic Foil generally transfers very easily and is quite dramatic. As this is a more “understated” finish, less is more!
Step 6: Once all the foil transfer is complete, go back and do a hard and tight trowel of the Champagne Mist Lusterstone overall. Use a more flexible Japanese Trowel with a very high angle to really push the material into the surface. Allow to dry. The finish at this point is quite beautiful! You could easily stop here, but if you would like to add subtle color, continue to Step 7.
Step 7: The stenciling is done with sheer Faux Crème Colors. For the green color mix 2 parts Turquoise with 1 part Earth Brown. For the purple color mix 2 parts Violet with 1 part Earth Brown. Use a dry-brush stencil method that involves dipping just the tip of the brush bristle into the color and then off-loading well on good quality paper towels to remove most of the paint. Then, use a very light pressure on the brush and a swirling technique to just add a “blush” of color to the design areas. 
Alternate Finish: This finish uses the same Colour Shaper stenciling technique with Frosted Denim Lusterstone over Weathered Bronze Lusterstone. It is toned with a soft glaze of Van Dyke Brown Faux Crème Color in Aquacreme.
