I know that during this quarantine phase, everyone has taken on a love for at-home DIY project––including me and my husband. We first started with our patio and now our family room. We got it painted last year and to be honest, I don't know what I was thinking when I had my accent wall painted blue. Well, I take that back, I do know what I was thinking.
I was trying to bring the "beach" to my home by having my accent wall blue (like the sea), the outside walls grey, and my kitchen beige (the sand). But after some time passed, I wasn't fond of the idea. Plus, my husband started working on the floor and never finished. Hey, I give him his props he did start, but the floor hasn't been finished... and it's been a year!
With that in mind, I put on my creative cap and got to work on giving my living room a total makeover.
This was my step-by-step process on elevating my home with a DIY accent wall:
Here's what you'll need:
- 1-gallon white paint
- 2 thick paint brushes
- 2 large paint rollers
- 2 small paint rollers
- 1 steady hand
- 2-3 rolls of frog painters tape (Lowes guy said it works better than the blue tape)
- 3 paint buckets
- A couple of old blankets to cover the floor
- 1 ladder
- 1 measuring device
- 1 pencil
Being home, I was able to allow my creative juices to flow thinking of how I wanted to change my family room. I wanted to keep the grey theme and didn't want to do a lot of work, if you know what I mean. So I started looking up different ideas for accent walls. I did toy with the idea of wallpaper but my husband wasn't down with that plan. I also was thinking about painting it just one solid grey color, but that would be too plain for the vibe I was going for.
I took to Pinterest and saw a chevron print and fell in love. Y'all, I looked high and low for a chevron print stencil and I've seen others do their walls with a stencil, but I couldn't find one large enough. The small ones would have taken days maybe even weeks to finish. My husband is an Architect Designer, so I asked him if he thought he would be able to do it with tape and he was like, "Oh yeah, I can do that!"
Step Two: Painting
We first had to paint the wall white. Thank God for my husband because I was going to do it all backwards. I was going to tape it then paint it white, my husband informed me that if we did it that way, we would be painting for days and then it wouldn't have looked right.
Step Three: Taping
Next up is taping. I am going to be honest I didn't know that "math" was going to be involved. I seriously thought that all we had to do was put tape up in zigzags. Again I thank God for my husband who brought me back to reality real quick.
You need to measure your wall from top-to-bottom and side-to-side. It's important for you to have in mind how many patterns you want. I wanted six in total. So my husband measured and taped the wall according to his measurements. Keep in mind that everyone's measurements will be different because it's according to your wall size.
Now here is where the math comes into place again. To get the chevron print, you have to place the tape on the wall in a zigzag shape. My husband measured for each zigzag to be two-feet apart. And you follow this throughout the entire wall following the taped-off sections, moving from top to bottom.
Step Four: Fill In The Blanks
Now, this is where the fun and intense part starts! You need to have your two colors picked out. I chose a light grey and a darker grey. Go over with a pencil in each zigzag and write in the color you want to paint in each zag. Use your roller to paint the color in each section. To make it easier, my husband had one color and I had another, that way we didn't get it mixed up.
Be careful and don't go too fast you can mess up easily if you're not paying attention! After you have done this, let it dry for a little bit. Then, you carefully take the paint off and boom!
The Final Reveal
Can you say WOW? It doesn't even look like the same room. If you ask me, it looks like something out of the Southern Living Magazine! We did that!
Featured image by Tamron Little.
RELATED
During the Los Angeles tour stop, which spanned three dates on May 21, May 23, with the finale on May 24, xoNecole had the opportunity to test out the glosses included in this soft launch, as SZA revealed in a statement that "this is just the start of other lip products, including plans to launch stains, liners, and creams all inspired by SZA's “infamous layered lip combinations.”
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So, what is included in the first Not Beauty launch?
The current Not Beauty products available are lip glosses that come in three shades: In the Flesh, Strawberry Jelly, and Quartz.
During my visit to the first LA Not Beauty pop-up activation, I not only had the chance to purchase all three glosses but also took a peek inside the blow-up log tent. Inside, fans got to experience SZA’s love for nature and her fascination with bugs, which are prominently featured in her performances for this tour. At one point, she even had human preying mantis prancing across the stage y'all.
There were blow-up photos of the beauty that is SZA for fans (myself included) to take photos, but in wooden-like tree trunks were a deeper dive into some of the ingredients featured in her products and their benefits.
For example, the glosses feature Hi-Shine Lip Jelly and Shea Butter as key ingredients and some of the listed benefits included are:
- Shea Butter - “A powerhouse ingredient, offering both functional and nourishing benefits.”
- Hi-Shine Lip Jelly (featured in the In the Flesh shade) - “Formula glides on with perfect adhesion to the lips without stickiness).
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What are in the products?
Featured in an orange package, with images of a bug and flower on the side, the back of the box reads: “It’s NOT BEAUTY, it just works. Developed by Solána “SZA” Rowe.
As someone who never leaves home without a good lip gloss, I loved how compact the wood panel packaging is. Perfect to slip into my purse, or in the case of the show at SoFi Stadium, into my pocket when I’m not carrying a bag.
Because I’m a sucker for a good black and brown lip liner and clear gloss combo, I decided to wear the Quartz flavor on night one of the Grand National Tour LA stop, and it did not disappoint. I’ll admit, it’s light weight feel made me nervous because it felt like there was nothing on my lips. However, when I checked my lips in my compact mirror several times throughout the night, I was shocked to find that my gloss was still intact. I only reapplied once out of the habit of looking cute and applying my gloss, but not necessity.
Here are some of the ingredients featured, but not limited to, in the Quartz flavor.
- Polyisoubutene
- Butyrospermum Parkii (Shea)Butter
- Ricinus Communis (Castor) Seed Oil
- Mentha Piperita (Peppermint) Oil
- Tocopherol
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Lip prep
I’m a simple girl who loves to stay true to her roots. So ahead of the show, I stopped by a local Inglewood Beauty Supply store and grabbed a Black and Brown shade lip pencil for just under $2 a piece.
Shading the outline of my lips with the black pencil first, I used the brown to lightly fill the inside of my lips before applying my Quartz Not Beauty shade gloss.
How to apply
There’s truly no right or wrong way to apply lip gloss (in my opinion), with this being a brush applicator sort of product, I simply untwisted the top and swiped the gloss around my top and bottom lip generously.
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Results
Again, my Not Beauty Quartz product stayed on my lips from the start of the show, which began with a fire DJ set from LA’s very own, Mustard, to the conclusion when Kendrick and SZA reunited on stage to send us home to their duet, “luther,” featured on the rapper's GNX album.
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