Stencil artists extraordinaire Linda Buckingham and Leslie Bird have hit upon a truly brilliant approach to their subject that enables even novices to create high-quality, large-scale designs. Their method entails covering the paintable surface with freezer paper (adhered with stencil spray adhesive), projecting the image onto the paper using an overhead or slide projector, and tracing the design onto the paper. Each design element is then color-coded and cut out one color at a time. In effect, the usually complex process of producing wall murals is reduced to the simplicity of a paint-by-number scheme. The 40 step-by-step projects include materials lists, color codes, color photos of the finished work, and complete gridded patterns of each design, so even if you don't have access to any of the various projectors adaptable to this process (though they can be rented for surprisingly little), you can still follow the technique using the old-fashioned grid-transfer method.

Not only is Buckingham and Bird's approach ingenious, but their designs are stunning, and greatly varied in style. They fill walls with schools of tropical fish, a soaring Pegasus, peaceful landscapes, an airborne snowboarder, the cow jumping over the moon, a dozing tiger. Doors sport faux wood inlay, a gliding ocean liner, desert scenes. Glass can be "etched" with elegant stencil designs. Floorcloths feature cobblestones or swirling art nouveau designs. Every room in the house is fair game to these two, and not only in the house: one of the authors lives aboard a boat crammed with stenciled surfaces. This volume is both a marvelous source of inspiration and a practical, beautifully produced how-to guide. --Amy Handy

$16.47