I found this on the Lowe's website.
Several different types of material can be used for rag rolling or ragging:
- Plastic bags
- Corduroy
- T-shirts
- Cheesecloth
- Netting
- Terry cloth
- Burlap
- Linen
I bought the sponge roller at Lowe's to use on my playroom walls. I didn't like the effect of it at all. It was a waste of money.
I ended up using rolled plastic grocery bags. The walls look great.
Here's a little hint: Instead of spending $25 on the gallon of glaze, go over to the Wagner paint sprayer display and pick-up a bottle of Latex Paint Conditioner (there may be a better brand to use, Wagner worked for me). It's about $7.98 a bottle and does the same thing the glaze does, for a lot less $$. It thins the paint, but doesn't change the color. Thinning it keeps the paint wet longer on the wall so you have more time to work with it before it dry's.
Everything I read about doing this kind of painting said to work in small sections - 3' x 3'. I did that on the first 3 walls and had a heck of a time blending all the sections together to make it look uniform. When I got to the last wall, it was getting to be 5 or 6:00 in the morning and I just wanted to be done. So, I got a bunch of the plastic bags rolled-up and ready to go and rolled the top layer of paint on the entire wall. It went very fast and it turned out better than the other 3 walls. I didn't have to do any blending.
You asked about what to use to feather (blend?) the edges. I used the bags for that too. But, I had a little bit of the base coat paint in one paint tray and a little of the top coat in another tray (you could use a paper plate). This way, if you need a little more of one color in an area, you just dab it on and blend it.
I also had a stiple brush to touch-up some of the spots the next day. Some spots I touched-up with a plastic bag. The natural daylight showed the imperfect areas pretty well.
Good luck with this. It's really not very difficult. One thing I suggest though - If you can have someone handing you the bag or whatever you decide to use, it will go MUCH faster (you have to get fresh bags or rags pretty frequently). I would have been done earlier and had less blending to do if I'd had a helper.
Oh, and have lots of extra disposable gloves in the room. They get tacky from the paint fairly fast and you'll need to change them often.
Have fun. Hope this helps.