How To Make Your Own Stencils

 I have been making and using my own stencils for years. One of my friends had asked me where I get all of my stencils from....only when I told her I made them myself did I realize that not every makes their own stencils. *wink* For those of you who never have... and are wanting to try it-- here is a quick tutorial on how to make your own stencil.
The super easiest way is to go online and find a stencil you like and print it out. Easy enough right? I am making some pirate party loot bags and so I chose a girlie looking skull and crossbones to stencil. I found something I could use online---- and I simply printed that onto some card stock paper in the size I was wanting....

I then used some clear packing tape to cover the image completely. You need to do this so the paint you stencil with doesn't seep into the paper and ruin your stencils.

Next, I used a very sharp blade to cut out different parts of the stencil. The majority of this image is going to be pink... so that is the bottom part of the stencil. I didn't cut the bow out, just the parts I wanted to be pink. I then cut out the eyes and nose of the skull stencil, these parts of the stencil I want black. I added some velum to the image so that I could use it to lay across the stenciled image to get the eye placement just right. Lastly, I traced the bow onto some velum and cut that out.
So, here I have the first stencil that will be done in pink....
I used spray adhesive on the backside of the paper. It pulls easily off of the fabric.

 Here you can see the first part of the stenciled image completed...
next, I laid the eyes and nose stencil onto the previously stenciled pink image....

and lastly, the bow stencil was added...
Here it is all completed...

I used these stencils 30 times without any damage to any of them and without having to reapply the spray adhesive to the backsides.

 Put them in a nice safe spot to dry..... away from cats *wink*

It is so easy to make your own stencils. I'm now on the look out for another skull and cross bones to use for some boy loot bags. Fun times- fun times!
big hugs,