Youd like a nice wrought iron headboard for your newly remodeled bedroom or just to liven up a boring stale dcor theme. Youve thought about buying an iron headboard but shelling out hundreds of dollars for a new one or even taking iron design classes doesnt fit into your budget right now. You'd love to know how to build a headboard but don't think you really have the time. Instead of buying and making, start thinking stenciling!

If youre not knowledgeable about stenciling you can always go to the library or do a search online for the topic of stenciling. Once youve learned the basics itll be easy to get the materials to design and make a stencil for your faux headboard. Another thing youll want to do is to find a wrought iron design that will be a perfect match for your bedroom. Try searching online for sites that sell wrought iron headboards. Youll get a lot of good design ideas without spending a cent. Check out local neighborhoods and patio and garden shops for real life examples of nicely designed wrought iron patterns. Use these to inspire you to come up with just the right design for your bedroom dcor theme.

Materials Needed for Making a Wrought Iron Headboard:

- Stencil (can be made out of heavy paper, plastic, cardboard or metal).
- Pencil, Tape (low tack tape might be best for walls, some use spray adhesive).
- Measuring Tape, Paper Towels or Rags, Dropcloth.
- Stencil Brush (one or more), Small Artists Brush.
- Latex Paint: Black and Medium Gray

Design the stencil on a large piece of paper or cardboard, whatever medium youve decided to use for the stencil. You may choose to make the stencil the entire size of your bed area or just make it half the size and flip it over to repeat and complete the design. Tape the finished stencil to the wall right where you want the faux headboard to be. You may need to do some adjusting here to get it just right; youll be applying paint to your wall so make sure to position it correctly.

Often we see a shadow on the surface behind wrought iron and thats exactly what will set this project off is the faux shadow effect. Get your gray paint ready to use, dip the stencil brush into it and apply to entire stencil. Fill in the empty lines by swirling your paint filled stencil brush. Remove the stencil and do any touch-ups that are needed with a small artists brush such as filling in lines here and there. Also, clean up the stencil as youll be using it again right away.

In order to make the shadow effect come alive we must reposition the stencil. Place and tape the stencil approximately one inch up and one inch to the left of the gray shadow lines. Next, ready your black latex paint and dip the stencil brush into it. Fill in all the lines as you did when you applied the gray shadow paint. As before, remove the stencil and with an artists brush, fill in any missing or broken lines.

For a little more of a realistic effect, take the artists brush and dip into the gray paint. Stipple or lightly apply a little gray paint to the top of the black lines as if light was being reflected off the tops of the faux iron.

Now stand back and congratulate yourself for creating a fun and surprisingly realistic looking faux wrought iron headboard!