Painting/Stenciling a scalloped border

[SoonerTexan]

I want to do a border like this in N's room:

http://melissaesplin.com/2010/01/the...lloped-border/

Except I don't really want to use contact paper--the walls have an awful 70s finish on them and I don't think it would go over well with contact paper, so I plan to paint it.

How would you go about doing this? The walls are currently beige, but I'm painting them a light blue. I plan on taping off a section at the top for the non-scalloped part of the border, but I'm not sure how to go about doing the scallops. Cardboard stencil? I'm worried about it bleeding through. Should I paint the white scallops over the blue background or do it in "reverse" and "carve out" scallops out of the white with blue paint?

DiggityDot, I'm counting on you!

[diggitydot]

Use Frog tape. It is expensive, but it causes the paint that is overlapped onto the tape to gel, which lowers the chances of it bleeding through.

It's probably easier to paint the whole wall your base color (the color for the lower part), let it dry, and then tape off and paint your scallops. You'll need to be careful about drips and blobs from the scallop color, but that is easy to rectify if you keep some touch-up paint of the lower color.

Honestly, painting the whole damn wall and then just buying a plain, scalloped wallpaper border would probably be easiest, even if a little more spendy.

Most stencils (no matter what they're made from) are designed to work as a guide for super dry brushes with very minimal paint. They don't work well to use with normal paint because they bleed under the edges like crazy.

[SoonerTexan]

I do have frog tape--I thought it might be hard to tape off rounded scallops, though. I guess I can try!

I hope I don't regret this project!

[diggitydot]

It will be a pain to tape off curves.

[Michele]

I did waves in D's room in Louisiana. I drew the waves on cardboard, cut it out...then traced the waves with a pencil on the wall. Then I painted carefully using a small brush to the line. The waves were at the top of the door frame and the water underneath was blue. I think I have a pic somewhere.

[samssugarmomma]

Is this video helpful -= http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uwV0GWolcdY

You might not have to tape those curves after all!

[samssugarmomma]

Here's a stencil that you can buy - http://www.stencilsanddecals.com/ite...ld-Stencil.htm