DIY Buffalo Check Using Paint

I’m busy Christmas crafting up a storm and am excited to share my DIY Buffalo Check project with you today!  I knew I wanted to incorporate this red hot pattern into my Christmas mantel but I wasn’t sure how… fabric? Printable?  Neither one of those options were going to give me the effect I was looking for.  No time to order fabric (plus it can be expensive!) and I didn’t want to have to sit down and design something on my computer.  Painting the pattern seemed like a much more enjoyable process!  Plus I had seen this amazing wall by the girls at Classy Clutter and was dying to give it a try!   It does take a little time but it’s so fun, promise!

Here’s the big how to (feel free to pin and come back!):

First of all, you can paint this pattern on ANYTHING… fabric, wood, metal… whatever you like!  I wanted to put one of these wooden rounds (found in the lumber section at Home Depot) on my Christmas mantel so that is what I painted.   I started by painting the entire thing white and allowing it to dry completely.

Then I needed to decide how large I wanted my checks.  I settled on three inches wide.  To make things easier I cut a piece of cardstock three inches wide to use as a guide.  I lightly traced lines (using that cardstock as a straight edge) every three inches in both directions until I had perfect three inch squares.

Next I taped off every other stripe (going in one direction) for my initial red color.  **You will need three different shades of whatever color you’re wanting your buffalo check to be!  A light, medium and dark.**  Here are the paint colors I used for this project:

Americana Craft Paint brand in True Red (my light), Primary Red (my medium) and Tuscan Red (my dark).

After taping off your first stripes, paint them with your LIGHT color.  Allow to dry.  Remove tape.

Then tape off every other stripe running the other direction.  Paint these stripes with your MEDIUM color. Allow to dry completely but don’t remove tape.  When it’s completely dry,  tape off around each of the squares where the two colors overlapped.  Since your tape is still there from the 2nd set of stripes you should only have to tape off two sides of each square, if that makes sense (so sorry I forgot to take a pic of that step for the above step-by-step collage!).   After each square is taped, paint them in with the DARK color.

Then remove all your tape and you should have a beautiful buffalo check pattern!  I sanded the edges a little (because some red got down on my white edge of my wood round) and then touched up the paint as needed.  I then sealed the entire thing with mod podge.

It is the absolute perfect touch for my Christmas mantel this year!  You can see more of my mantel HERE.

Do you love the buffalo check trend right now?  It’s so easy to recreate I’m sure this won’t be my last project where I use it!

Happy Christmas crafting!