Fun With Stencils

I finally bought some real stencils, just in time for day one of the annual Halloween Craft Party.  I say day one because this year I split it into two days.  One for playing with texture paste and one for painting and embellishing after everything has dried. More details on that after the final day.

I ordered a few Tim Holtz stencils from Amazon because there really wasn't much to choose from locally. If you are picking out stencils specifically for use with texture paste, keep that in mind.  I really liked the Clockwork stencil, but I realized the areas that I would want to be raised would in fact be recessed and I was afraid the fine details would be lost.  I also liked Gears and Shatter but didn't get them for the same reasons. Doing a search on "texture paste" and the name of the stencil you are considering should turn up some examples of how it will look.  If you only find examples using paints or inks that might be a hint that texture paste won't work well.

Above on the left is a 3 pack of mini stencils. From top to bottom: Gothic, Latticework and Blossom.  The dimensions given are 3-1/8 x 6-1/4 inches, but the actual design measures 2-5/8 x 5.  On the right is their regular sized stencil Flourish, again the dimensions given are 4.125 x 8.5 inches, but the design is approximately 3-1/4 x 6-7/8.

For the following examples I used the stencils on thick glossy junk mail. Later these pieces can be cut, torn or layered to use in an actual project. They are flexible enough that they could be wrapped around a bottle.

The texture paste I used was a mix of 2:1, paint and glue with enough spackle mixed in to make it fairly thick.

Exhibit A on the left was not thick enough and spread after the stencil was lifted.  

Exhibit B on the right was the result of adding more spackle.  

I spread the texture paste with a palette knife but anything rigid with a straight edge will work.  

With all the stencils I played with spreading varying thickness.  In my experience a layer of texture paste the thickness of the stencils, which are quite thin, gave the cleanest definition.  

Here side by side from left to right: the stencil, the stenciled texture paste and a print of the texture paste left on the stencil.  The latter definitely has more of a learning curve, but give it a try, beats just washing the stencil off.  I suggest always keep some extra stuff nearby to experiment on tags, packaging, junk mail, etc.    

This stencil was giving off a Haunted Mansion vibe so I painted it purple and black.  The one on the far right is the one with the runny texture paste, not perfect but still usable. I tend to give everything a black base coat, but hopefully you can see from the picture this isn't always the best choice.  In this case a white base coat is a better foundation for a deep purple.  Black or white all three needed two coats of purple for full coverage.  

The Flourish stencil seemed easier to work with.  I don't have enough stencil experience to say for sure whether it was the design or the larger size, but it always came out looking great.  Even the print (far right) of the dirty side of the stencil turned out really well. 

And here it is with a quick paint job.  

The Lattice stencil on top was the hardest to work with because the fine lines are not forgiving if you get sloppy.  This one definitely works better with an even thin layer of paste. The Blossom stencil is just blah in my opinion.  Above I laid the texture paste on really thick, which made it look even more chunky and blah, but even when I spread it thin I was still underwhelmed.  Neither resulted in a good reverse print.

And here they are painted. I don't love them like the first two stencils, but I can see where they could add interest to a project when layered with other stuff.

Stay tuned until next time when we apply stenciling to things other than perfectly flat pieces of junk mail.