How To Apply Stencils in Weird Places

Using stencils with texture paste on a flat surface is pretty straight forward.  Using them on a rounded surface gets a bit more complicated.  Using them on an odd shaped uneven surface such as this skull is practically impossible.

I've already covered flat surfaces, so let's jump right to this round bottle. This wasn't horrible to stencil. I recommend using a little tape to keep the stencil in place. The hard part here was carefully removing the stencil without mucking up the texture paste, which I wasn't completely successful at but I don't think it's too horrible.  

Next I tried to stencil onto a skull. Mind you, I only tried just a small portion of the stencil on a relatively small smooth area of the skull. I didn't do very well.  I wiped it off and tried again a few more times and decided this was not going to work.  I'm not saying it's impossible. I'm sure there are Martha Stewart clones out there that can do it, but why bother when I have a much easier method.

Stencil onto thin paper and after it's dried apply it to your project.  Yep, it's that easy.

This is texture paste stenciled onto that thin paper they wrap around your fragile purchases at the store.  I'd call it wrapping paper but that make me think of gift wrap.  Although this would be a good way to reuse gift wrap too, as long as it's the thin paper type.

Here I've applied it to a pressed cardboard shoe form, but I think it's going to be a creepy rabbit someday.  Don't see it? Maybe the following helps.  Although sadly I think I'm going to have to  build up  a lot of papier mache over the stenciling to achieve the freaky rabbit in my head, which is not this guy who is temporarily adorned with random stuff from my craft table.

But now you can see the rabbit potential too, right? Just like any decoupage/papier mache it's always better to tear around the design, the edges are easier to blend. I use a half and mixture of glue and water to apply the stenciled paper.

Next I did this skull which has more nooks and crannies and a lot of it's own texture already.

I figured I needed to use something thinner, so I tried tissue paper.  I was a little worried the tissue paper would be too fragile, but it worked great.  Stenciling on it wasn't a problem, even using old wrinkle sheets. Although if you really want a perfect stencil, a fresh crisp sheet or at least ironing over an old one would probably be best.

The only caveat was I didn't trust myself to tear around the small sections that wanted so I cut around the stenciling.  That meant having to get creative with the texture paste later to hide the edges.

Also, you don't get any second chances applying tissue paper, once it sticks there's no adjusting without tearing it.

I added a few molded pieces later, they are a lot thicker than the stenciling. Not sure I'm digging that.  Overall I'm not really happy with this guy, something is off. I'll have to figure out what it is and fix it later. Here are some more details from another angle.
 

Even if I'm not crazy about my skull, the technique is solid and the pre-stenciled sheets were very useful at the annual craft party.  I have another skull and a faux pumpkin in mind for having another go at this.