Painted Fall Leaf Curtains with Stencils

Fall is here!! Seriously, fall is my favorite season. 

The cool weather perfect for jeans and a sweater. Football games and piles of leaves to jump in.

Except we don't have leaves in Kansas. Why?

Well, first there just aren't that many trees in Kansas to begin with. 

Second, a lot of trees in our town are evergreen cedar. The are hardy trees but aren't the prettiest to look at. 

Third, if you are lucky enough to have a deciduous tree in your Kansas yard and you do have beautiful leaves falling down...well, put away that rake because the leaves don't stay in the yard long. The wind ALWAYS blows them away to parts far away. 

*sigh*

I REALLY miss fall leaves. Really. 

I've asked me family in Indiana to send me leaves in the mail.

I think they think I'm joking. 

I'm NOT! 

Fine, if my family doesn't love me enough to send leaves, I'll just have to make my own. 

See! Now the fall leaves are falling all day long outside my window!! 

A friend of mine had given me a huge roll of paper, the kind that schools use, and I cut it to fit my odd shaped windows. 

I Googled leaf template and printed a few pages, laminated and cut the leaf shapes that I liked. If you look at the top of that picture you can see my dauber. I took an old towel and cut off a square and wadded it up into, well the shape it is, took duct tape around the top and used it to paint over the stencils..it worked perfectly! 

I did a layer in oranges, yellows and reds then I let those colors dry. Later I came in and stenciled again with greens and browns slightly overlapping the other leaves. I am sooo happy with how it turned out! I love that big window but I hate blocking the light with curtains. Of course I can't leave it uncovered completely, people might see me walking around naked in my house (kidding!!) 

I love curtains that aren't curtains!!