How to make a Stencil

Mai's embellished t-shirt celebrating her 5th birthday.

My friend Michi gave me a great tip to make quick stencils. I had always used the method of spray mounting an image on poster board and then laboriously cutting out the design with an exacto knife. Cutting through those thick layers is difficult and time consuming. Well, his time saving tip creates a durable, multi purpose stencil with much less effort.

Once you have a design to make a stencil out of, take the artwork to the local copy center. The copy center will be able to print out your artwork ( they can even print large, poster sized images). After they print your image, have them laminate it. (Be sure that the laminate is no more than 5 ml. I had a 7 ml laminate done once and it was too thick and stiff.) So, now you have a laminated image ready for stencil cutting. Simply use your craft knife to cut and trim away the areas in your design needed to make the stencil. You'll find that cutting through this medium is much much easier than cutting through poster board, stencil plastic, or felt. It also uses fewer blades, which is a money saver. When you are finished cutting, you will have a durable, light weight, thin stencil. I find that these thin, light weight stencils are much easier to anchor with stencil adhesive to fabric and walls (whatever you throw at them), which eliminates the dreaded "under-spray" (paint creeping under the edges of your cut out areas in your stencil creating a blurry transfer).

Materials Needed:
Rotary Mat - to protect work surfaces and to help keep blades sharp
Craft Knife - try to find one with a grip. The metal ones slip around when hands get sweaty.
Laminated Artwork - use your own design laminated at the local copy shop or find a *ready made one.

Break down of Steps:
1. Have stencil artwork printed
2. Have printed artwork laminated

3. Rest your laminated design on you rotary mat. Using a craft knife (I like X-acto brand) cut away the negative areas in your stencil. The "e" in this design had to have "bridges" made to keep the center of the "e" from falling away when cut out.  I left a 1/8 inch strip connecting the center of the "e" at the top and bottom.  See arrows pointing these bridges out below.

4. Stencil everything that will hold still :) To use your stencil, dust the back of the stencil with stencil adhesive or re-positional adhesive. This will help keep your stencil secure and in place when working and helps keep under-spray at bay.

* Be sure that your stencil has an outside border that is large enough to control paint "over-spray. " (paint floating out past the edge of your stencil onto unintended surfaces.) I usually have a 3 inch border around the edge of my stencils. However, if this isn't possible, simple protect areas that you want to be paint free by blocking them off with scraps of paper (great use for junk mail and old magazines) or old fabric. Use tape to secure the position of the "over spray barrier" to your stencil and paint away.

* Here is a link to a tutorial that will teach you to make a stencil from a picture (adobe photoshop is required.) The site also has some other stencil ideas.

* Dover publications is a gem in the world of clip art. They also have a mailing list that you can join that will email you clip art "samples of the week."

-Shannon Schmalfeldt