Hi, are you looking for a pattern that isn't overly trendy and in every other person's home?  I've got your back.  I painted this wall for my daughter's room.  She was turning five; not just any five, but a spunky, happy sort of five. (Ever known a kid like that?) :)  I was going over the top in here, with a different design on every wall... (I think I was making up for not being able to do a nursery for her in the rental we were living in at the time.)  If you can paint a smooth line, you can do a good job with this.  Of course, that's up to your discretion ;)

I wish I could remember what inspired this but can't.  I had a basic idea of the scale I wanted of the horizontal pattern 

and I knew I wanted it to be pretty girly, I also knew I wanted this wall to be pink.  The ceilings are eight feet tall so making the stripes (for lack of a better word) 12 inches tall gave me nice chunky proportions.  I divided the width of the wall by six and the height by eight on a piece of graph paper (the third pic shows what I mean,) from there could make my template.  I also decided that I didn't want the light pink stripe to top off the wall so I split the pattern down a dark pink stripe instead...I'm hoping that makes sense... Basically, if you want to design a pattern like this, draw out your wall (on graph paper) and divide it into rectangles that would accomodate the template/stencil you'd want to make.

Start with the wall being painted the lighter of the colors you will be using.  (I was using left over paint from another project so I went skimpy and only painted where I needed the lighter pink.)  I had marked what would be the corners of the rectangle pattern (I made dots where the lines would cross from the graph paper drawing) to the wall. From there, I knew where to place the template for tracing.  Because the pattern can just be inverted, the template could be flipped over which ever way I needed to match the pattern I'd drawn out.

I cut the template out of dense cardboard.  Be careful to make it as smooth as possible and I even took wax and glided it over the edge so my lines would be nice and smooth when I traced the pattern.  HEADS UP: if you use a pencil use a mechanical one and write as lightly as possible because the graphite WILL mix with the paint at the edges of your pattern.  White chalk would be good but would make edging that line (with paint) drag, making it harder to achieve a smooth line.  I used a small brush to create the points and a larger (3 1/2in.) angled brush for the rest.

If you have the guts to try this, hopefully you also have perseverance, usually the best projects are the ones that have you wondering (or whining), "WHAT HAVE I STARTED?" partway through...

No really, I'm not joking ;)