Frog Tape
Having lived in our current house for a little over 11 years now, we're at that point where some of the rooms that we decorated quite early on need a little bit of a freshen up - you know what I mean I'm sure. Anyhow, at the moment the room we've been concentrating on is the Dining room. We're very happy with the wall colour we've got in there as it's a deep colour it still looks good, but the ceilings which were white have dulled a bit and needed repainting.

Of course the biggest problem when you're trying to paint just one wall or just the ceiling is not getting the paint on the other walls that are a different colour. My husband immediately piped up in answer to my concern 'Frog Tape!'.

'Do what???' I replied.

Well it turns out that Frog Tape which is reasonably new to the market is something he'd had recommended to him by a friend, and had already used when fitting some cupboards for someone a few weeks back and not wanting to get the paint he was painting the cupboards with on the walls there.

Frog Tape is bright green - Kermit the frog colour I suppose you could say - and it's designed to specifically prevent paint from seeping under it onto the surface you want protected. It's kind of like masking tape, only, well, better really.

It comes in a tub that's just big enough to keep your brand new roll of tape in. I don't think it's absolutely necessary to have this sort of container, but then I suppose if you carry it in a bag or toolbox anywhere it might get nicked at the edge or dusty or something which could prevent it from working as well so I guess it's not a bad idea really.

Now this stuff is very definitely NOT cheap! In fact at about £4 it costs around 4x the price of a roll of masking tape, but if it really works then I'll be honest, I'd rather pay more and get it right. As it's fairly new to the market, it's also not available everywhere you might look for it either. We've found that both homebase and b&q do stock it however and as most people have one of them somewhere near by it shouldn't be too hard to find.

You get 41 metres on a roll which is quite a lot - more than enough to do a reasonable size room with even if you had window and door frames, ceiling and skirting boards to mask off I'd say, so you do at least get a good quantity for your money.

So, we bought the tape, masked the edges of the room carefully pressing it down so that it was flat to the wall all over - just as easy to do as using masking tape if not slightly easier as this stuff doesn't seem to stretch the way masking tape can when you're trying to keep it straight and tidy - and then we painted... The following morning, we painted again, and then as soon as the paint was touch dry, we removed the tape. (After when I read the instructions, I did notice it recommends you remove and reapply between paint coats, but we didn't do this and it wasn't an issue thankfully - I reckon they just say that so you use more lol).

I was a little worried about how the tape had worked especially as I don't have the steadiest of hands when painting (hubby's a lot better at it, but swears more while doing it generally). I will own up now that I was genuinely amazed to find that we didn't have any bleeding at all under the tape. I don't think I've EVER painted a wall or ceiling or whatever without having some bleed under the tape, but this really does give a completely bleed free crisp and perfect line.

Not only was there no bleed at all, but the tape came off cleanly and easily and didn't lift any of the new paint with it. There were no bits that were hard to peel off or stuck fast, and although it does recommend you remove it straight away (the same as ordinary decorators masking tape does), I get the feeling that with this there may well be far less of an issue than there is with masking tape when it's left a bit too long.

Having used this so successfully, I would highly recommend that if you're planning on doing some painting and normally struggle with bleeding around the edges (particularly if you're using contrasting colours) then get some frog tape. It may be expensive, but if you sign up to the newsletter on the website you can get sent some money off vouchers towards your first purchase, and who knows maybe it'll start to come down in price soon as more people start to stock it too.