It’s no secret that the media is full of ideas about how to bring
the outdoors in. Well I’m an advocate for taking the inside out. When the weather is warm, there is nothing
nicer than picking up some of your inside furniture and taking it into the garden
with you. Nestle a nice chair comfortably under a tree beside a timber table with a real coffee mug resting on top, it's so much nicer than placing your plastic cup on your knee while perched on a picnic rug.
Of course there's nothing wrong with having a picnic in your own back yard, and of course you're all civilised people and are bound to have some sort of outdoor furniture, but you know what I mean; plenty of things can’t be left outside because they fade, get mouldy, and so on.
There are other ways that you can create more permanent reminders of the inside outside – and DIY stencil art is an obvious one. After five years of living at our house, Happy-Husband and I finally found an artwork we both liked and felt was the right one to hang over our dining room credenza. Its strong black and white motif works well on the black wall above the white built in furniture. Not long ago, when our rear garden wall was renovated, we installed a small window in the nib wall that was created. The girls call it their ‘castle’ and when it was painted, I kept thinking it needed something... well, more specifically, I thought it was crying out to be stenciled!
When I couldn’t find a stencil I liked well enough to buy, I decided to make my own. Using a piece of thick acrylic (such as the sort you find on the cover of business reports) I traced one small section of the dining room art work, cut it out, and then painted it onto the wall. It works a treat, and looks great on it’s own, and for those who know our home well, the connection between inside and outside is a nice one. For those who are new to the house, you can see one artwork from the other, so it’s fun to see who picks up that there’s a connection.
I’m looking forward to using the stencil shortly to put the same motif on a plain cushion cover to throw on the outdoor lounge. Be bold, be brave... have a look around your house and see if there is a favorite graphic you could trace and make into a stencil!
(If you're unsure how to make your own stencil, I'll outline how in the next Monthly Newsletter!)
