Bedroom Update - part 2 continued

You may remember the sad post about my wall art efforts in my bedroom.  If you don't, you can find them here.

I decided to stick with a simpler idea in hopes of getting better results.

I found a stencil at Hobby Lobby.  I grabbed some white paint and a stippling brush.  I used the same stencil 9 times and made this:

My best advice for stenciling is to use a spray adhesive on the back of your stencil.  It prevents it from sliding around.  It also helps keep paint from getting under the stencil where you don't want it.  You still have to be careful not to use too much paint, but it makes it a lot easier.  

Along with my satisfaction came another disappointment. 

I had seen something called "Looking Glass" paint from Krylon on the Nate Berkus Show.  The demonstrator gave a quick spray of the paint in a vase and "Voila" it had a reflective, mirror-like sheen.  I taped off a mirror for my bedroom and a vase for my kitchen table and got ready to spray.  

[Insert waiting for a day of nice weather here.]

I set my projects on an old sheet on our back lawn.  I sprayed and sprayed and sprayed.  There was nothing but a slight hint of gray.  We returned the can to the store thinking that maybe it was a faulty can.  

[Insert spraying an entire can of "light coats" on my mirror here.]

You could still see through the surfaces of both the mirror and the vase.  I guess it's possible that we got two faulty cans of paint, but I'm not going to spend another 11 dollars to find out - especially since the reverse side of the mirror didn't look at all mirror-like.

To solve the problem of my vase, I painted the inside with Krylon's "Chrome" paint.  We had some leftover from another project.  It wasn't reflective, but it blocked out the flower stems of my arrangement.  I tried the Chrome paint on the mirror, but the "mirror like" spotty surface showed through too much.  It went in the garbage.

Now I have another blank piece of wall art waiting for new inspiration.  Oh, bother.