Back of the bookshelves

I will be getting those PB Audrey curtains for the dining room, oh yes I will, someday soon....I have my eye on some on ebay but I keep getting outbid.  Regardless, I will have them.

I'm actually really happy with the Audrey curtains in the living room. They pull together the red chair, the stupid purple sofa, the meh blue rug.  With the chevron pillows and trellis chair seat it looks....dare I say...not like a kindergartener designed it.  

A little bit of self-indulgent navel-gazing here...I love bright punches of color. All the fabrics and accessories I pick up in stores are bright and colorful. But I feel when I decorate using lots of bright color, things are just TOO BRIGHT. (Downstairs foyer, anyone? Its burning my eyeballs every time I open the door. I really should just listen to the Mister. He is always right, but I always say no, no, you're not the decorating boss of me! I do it mySELF! And then I have to say, a little help here?)

Upon reflection, the reason I like the living room so much right now?  There's lots of color, but its more muted, and almost all of the big pieces are neutral.  So!  New decorating formula! Neutral large pieces and paint colors.  Bright cheerful pieces limited to accessories and easily changed things.  Try to use color but less intensity. Limit the BRIGHT BRIGHT BRIGHT stuff to one or two pieces. 

Ironically, I had already figured that formula out when it comes to paint colors....I rarely paint anything other than beige or white on the walls, because I tend to get tired of it in six months and then have to repaint.  (I once painted our powder room orange...my father said it reminded him of being on the inside of a cigarette. It glowed.)  I am not afraid of painting furniture bright colors, but our last two houses have been painted Sherwin Williams Kilim Beige on the interior.  (I have a spare gallon in the basement, and the blue downstairs foyer will soon be Kilim Beige as well.)

So...that brings me to fixing the dining room.

I plan on getting the Audrey curtains (the ones hanging in the picture are the ones currently hanging in the living room; I only scored two off craigslist, but I needed four).  I'm probably going to recover the dining chairs in brown vinyl --maybe the one with a crocodile print? (I know, I know, I just did these chairs, but the red is TOO BRIGHT. Its like a pizzeria.)

And then there's the back of the bookshelves.  I want a pattern in the back.  I luuuurrve me this stencil:

But its $42!!!!  Forty-two dollars seems like a lot for a stencil.  Plus its a reverse stencil so I'd have to paint the back of the shelves white, then use the blue over the stencil.


Also, there is a hole in the bottom back part of the bookshelf, seeing as the shelves were originally part of my mother in law's entertainment center.  I'd have to patch that somehow.

I could re-wrap my foamboard with a different material, perhaps this one? 

That would take care of patching the hole, since no one could see it.

Alternatively, I have seen some quatrefoil designs on other people's blogs, and everyone says "oh, I freehanded this! It only took 400 weekends!" or "I made my own stencil!"  How do you make your own stencil??  I am not crafty.  Things that require small, detail-oriented work rarely turn out well for me. 



And I have to get all this done in the next two weeks before my son's birthday party. 
Decisions, decisions.