Stenciling vs. Wallpaper

Back in March, I had the interior of my entire house painted white. I wanted a clean slate; crisp white walls that I could be creative with. I decided that I wanted to wallpaper one wall in my kitchen and soon after began a mad search for the perfect wallpaper. I found exactly what I wanted at Anthropologie. Of course, it had to be Anthro...where you can find the most amazing things, but things that are not always within my budget. I saw the Paeonia Wallpaper and immediately fell in love with it.

However, the price was beyond what I was willing to spend. At $148 per roll and needing two rolls to cover my wall, the total cost would be over $300. Not to mention, after reading the reviews and finding out how difficult this wallpaper is to work with, I discovered that I would most likely need to hire a professional to hang it. Still, I put 2 rolls in my cart and spent about a week going back and forth contemplating.
During this time, a friend of mine suggested that I try to find a stencil similar to the design of this wallpaper and I immediately had doubts that I could ever find anything comparable. Despite my doubts, I began looking at stencils...sooooo many stencils! Nothing even came close to matching the design on the Anthro wallpaper, nothing caught my eye until...
I stumbled across a website, Stencil Boss, and there it was! The Large Wild Flower Stencil at only $21! (Funny, they even use the Anthro photo with their stenciled wall photo shopped into it.)

I bought the stencil, bought some paint (Behr - Sunburst), bought a small roller, and went to work...

A million hours later (not really, but it sure felt like it), I was done. I had considered adding all the detail in the wallpaper to the stencil, but decided that it looked fine just the way it was.

The cost of the whole project? Less than $50...and that makes me HAPPY! Sorry, Anthropologie! But don't be sad, I bought a bunch of beautiful frames from you to go on my other walls. :)