This blog has allowed us to make some great friendships within the DIY and blogging world, one of which is with the company Porch.com. Because we had such a great time doing this post in October, we eagerly accepted their offer to be a part of their “10 Days of Valentine’s with Valspar” campaign. Essentially, we would be joining 9 other bloggers on their quest to incorporate 2015’s color of the year into a Valentine’s Day project.

At first we were pretty confident. But then we took another look at the actual color…MARSALA. Hmmmm, a bit deeper, darker, and more dramatic than these two blue & gray loving gals are used to using. Then we found out we would also have to use a mystery item along with the paint. Oh boy…2 double whammies in 1 project.

Soon our supplies arrived. A big ol’ gallon of Valspar Reserve along with the mystery supply…a stencil!

We racked our brains on potential project ideas: A stenciled dresser the color of Marsala? A dramatic Marsala accent wall? A Marsala painted rug? All of this crazy talk almost made us want to throw our hands up and quit, and then go enjoy a chicken marsala dinner instead of working on the actual project (all the “marsala” chat did make us hungry).But we didn’t quit. Instead, we decided that we would K.I.S.S. Keep it simple, Sugar. (okay, we know it is actually “stupid”, but that just doesn’t sound very nice now does it?)

Which projects do our readers love? Which projects do our readers actually re-create at home? The simple ones. The ones that take less than 10 minutes. The “Busy Girl” projects that just about any busy gal (or guy) can do tonight.

So here is that oh-so-easy project.We took an old bulletin board that Bridget had around the house and decided to give it a little Marsala Makeover. We put our stencil in the direct middle of the bulletin board, because doing any crazy shape or design would make this project not so simple…and we didn’t need to get all fancy like that. Then we took our paint and started stenciling away! A note about stenciling…

• Make sure your stencil is really, really flat. If you have to put a heavy book on top of it for the night…do it! It will make your life much easier.
• Get that stencil very secure on your board. If it’s not pushed down and secure, you will get paint where you don’t want it.
• Go slowly and dab, dab, dab.

We let our board dry for a while, and then took off our stencil to reveal a fun Marsala pattern underneath. Did we have some questionable looking areas? Yes…yes we did. Did we care? Nah. We knew we could hide those mistakes in a jiffy. We decided to use our newly dramatic bulletin board as a spot to corral Valentine’s Day cards and love letters! Kinda like an adult-version of those little mailboxes you make in grade school to hold all of your handmade valentines.

Even though we were hesitant at first, we liked the Marsala color much more than we anticipated. It’s sophisticated, moody, and totally out of our comfort zone. It definitely brings a bit of drama to this regular ol’ bulletin board.

Aren’t Valentine’s Day cards just the cutest? The glitter, the pinks, the reds, the theme of love. They’re just the sweetest kinds of cards. We wish we still gave out valentines to all of our favorite people, just like we did as school girls.Speaking of Valentines, did we pass the K.I.S.S. test? We really did try to keep it simple and have a little fun with the color Marsala along the way! Busy girls, do you think you can tackle a rookie stencil project like this? Literally — 10 minutes + drying… you can do this!!

 

P.S. We have almost a full gallon left of Marsala paint! Any ideas on what we can transform with this deep color of the year?