Category: Stenciling at Home

  • bay stencil logo on cake

    Make and use a cake stencil

    Stenciling onto a cake can make a somewhat ordinary dessert extraordinary. Powdered sugar on a chocolate cake The highest contrast combination that’s easily made with ingredients you probably already have around the house is powdered white sugar on a chocolate cake. I’ve found that increasing the moisture of the chocolate cake helps it to look…

  • personal electronics packaging upcycled to gift boxes

    Stencil a Gift Box

    In our house we have a ton of leftover boxes from personal electronics purchases. Let’s face it, companies like Apple and Samsung have really upped their game when it comes to packaging. The boxes are so nice you don’t want to throw them away. So here’s an idea to upcycle them. What you’ll need You’ll…

  • flying pig stencil light and dark layers, reproduced on midtone surface

    Mid-tone sidewalk chalk stencils

    Art students learn the art of ‘dark-light-dark-light’ (chiaroscuro) by drawing with dark and light chalk on mid-tone (typically brown or gray) paper. The mid-tone is the default, and the shadows are dark and the highlights are white. This technique works as well on concrete or asphalt as it does on brown paper. If we create…

  • roses repeating

    Use Midjourney to Make a Repeating Wall or Floor Stencil

    You’ve seen high-impact rooms with repeating patterns stenciled on the wall or floor. We generated some repeating interior wall stencils together some time ago. But what about making your own custom pattern? I made a dozen custom patterns in an hour or so with MidJourney version 5. (Remember, we used the AI to generate stencil-ready…

  • dabbing stencil with sponge brushes

    What’s the difference between spray paint stencils and dabbing stencils?

    What is a dabbing stencil and what is a spray stencil? A dabbing stencil is one where you physically touch the surface with a brush or sponge or roller. On the contrary, with a spray paint stencil you never touch the surface because you are spraying the paint at the surface with a spray can…

  • sponge for cleaning stencils

    How to Clean and Care for your Mylar Stencils

    Mylar is polyester Mylar (polyester) stencils are lightweight and durable, but paint residue can build up over time, resulting in a blotchy or drippy application of paint. Fortunately, cleaning your mylar stencil is easy. Just follow these steps. What You’ll Need What you’ll need depends on what it is that you want to get off…

  • Dave and Abraham Lincoln stencil card

    How to Make a Stencil Card

    Making a stencil card is easy and fun if you have a craft cutter like a Cricut Explore series. But before we walk you through the steps to create a stencil card, have a look at what the final project could look like. What you’ll need You’ll need a craft cutter, like a Cricut Explore,…

  • wreath christmas cards with stencils used to make them

    Holiday cards made with stencils are fast, fun, and infinitely personalizable

    This season (okay, every season) we make holiday cards using a smaller sized stencil. This time we made them to fit into an 6″ x 9″ envelope. We like to print on the front and write on the back, so that it’s easy for our loved ones to just plop the card onto the fridge…

  • santa stencil with lively green-gold background swoosh

    Let’s Stencil…Santa Claus

    A perennial holiday favorite, Saint Nicholas makes a great stencil because he is reproducible with just black, white and red paint. If you want to splurge on some reindeer, you’ll need some brown, and if you want to put colored presents in his sack you’ll maybe need a splash of blue or green. Straight up…

  • dot pattern circle stencils results

    Spray Paint Stencils for Interior Walls

    Don’t be afraid to use spray paint inside! That’s the take-away here, honestly. These stencils have really cool effect on interior walls. If you watch the video, you’ll get a kick out of how much fun it can be to experiment with spray paint. Although it’s in virtual reality, I urge you to take the…