**The Art of Stenciling: Tips and Tricks**

Stenciling is a versatile art form that can be used to add color, texture, and design to various surfaces, including walls, fabrics, and even harder materials like wood and metal. In this article, we'll explore the world of stenciling and provide some valuable tips and tricks to help you get started.

**Choosing the Right Materials**

When it comes to stenciling, the right materials can make all the difference. The type of surface you're working with will determine the best stencil material for you. For example, if you're stenciling on fabric, you'll want to use a lightweight and easy-to-work-with material like iron-on freezer paper or a specialized stencil fabric. On the other hand, if you're stenciling on harder surfaces like wood or metal, you may need to use a more durable material like vinyl or spray adhesive.

**Working with Stencils**

One of the most important things to keep in mind when working with stencils is to start light and build up gradually. This will help prevent overloading the paint and ensure that your design turns out even and smooth. It's also a good idea to wait for the paint to set slightly before removing the stencil, as this will help prevent bleeding or uneven lines.

We put these tips into practice in our latest video, where we stenciled on a bird feeder using iron-on freezer paper. We also experimented with spray adhesive and vinyl stencils on a jute rug, which turned out surprisingly well. And for a fun project, we used stencil paint to add color and design to a plain white wall.

**Tips for Stenciling on Fabric**

Stenciling on fabric is a great way to add texture and interest to your designs without having to sew or embroider. One of the easiest ways to stencil on fabric is by using freezer paper. Simply print your design onto the freezer paper, cut it out with scissors or a craft knife, and then tap off some of the paint from your brush before applying it to your fabric.

Another great way to stencil on fabric is by using specialized stencil fabric. This type of fabric has a textured surface that helps prevent the paint from bleeding or spreading unevenly. You can also use stencils made from cardstock or watercolor paper, which can be cut and applied directly to your fabric.

**Stenciling on Harder Materials**

If you're stenciling on harder materials like wood or metal, you'll need to use a more durable material for your stencil. Vinyl is a great option, as it's flexible and easy to work with. You can also use spray adhesive to attach the stencil to the surface.

One of our favorite techniques for stenciling on harder materials is by using a cutting machine to cut out intricate designs from vinyl. This allows you to create complex patterns and designs that would be difficult or impossible to achieve by hand.

**Cleaning Your Stencils**

To keep your stencils in good condition, it's essential to clean them regularly. A simple way to do this is to soak the stencil in hot water for a few hours or overnight. This will help loosen any dried paint and make it easy to remove.

We also recommend storing your stencils in a flat position, either by placing them under a heavy pile of books or gently bending them back into shape. This will help prevent damage from creasing or bending.

**Reusing Your Stencils**

One of the best things about stenciling is that you can reuse your stencils multiple times with minimal effort. By cleaning and drying your stencil thoroughly, you can use it again without worrying about it losing its shape or integrity.

We hope these tips and tricks have inspired you to try your hand at stenciling! With a little practice and patience, you'll be creating beautiful designs in no time.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enand you want to tap tap to attach that paint um all right hello i'm dennis i'm andrew we're the crafty lumberjacks welcome back to handmade if you've been watching a lot of our projects lately you know we've been stenciling a lot yes and stenciling is a great way to add a personal touch to any project it may seem intimidating but if you have the right skills and the right tools you can stencil just about anything we'll show you the tools of the trade so let's talk application tools you can use a brush a sponge a dabber or a roller yeah ideally you want something with a flat top that's good for dabbing or swirling uh we like to use a natural bristle brush um but just a tip before you start stenciling you want to make sure you get any of these loose fibers off of there yeah you really don't want that to screw up your work oop did you see that one fly i did there it goes uh let's talk let's talk let's talk adhesive let's don't get adhesive i mean let's talk adhesive adhesive all right but stock adhesive you're going to want to use something for your stencil to stick to whatever surface you're working on um because uh you want nice clean lines yeah and you also oh sorry i'm so sorry no that's okay i mean what do you need to say no nothing i thought just kidding um all right let's talk adhesive you want to use an adhesive for your stencil to stick to the surface of whatever you're working with uh for that you can either use a spray adhesive painters tape or they even sell stencils with adhesive backing this is gonna prevent from bleeding from any of your paint and also give you nice clean lines let's talk paint a multi-surface craft paint will work for most projects just check the back to make sure it will work for your material but the one paint you don't want to use is oil-based paint oh no you better don't no um if you use an oil-based paint you're really not going to get any clean lines it's most likely to bleed right through the stencil all right let's start with our first project we're going to start with a tea towel since we're stenciling on a tea towel we're going to be using fabric paint because it is a piece of fabric yeah and we're going to be using a stencil but we're going to add some spray adhesive to the back to get it nice and stuck down that made sense right and we're going to be adding spray adhesive to our stencil to make it nice and secure perfect a little goes a long way you really don't want to over saturate it we're gonna let it sit for just a couple seconds so it gets a little tacky all right all right i think that's pretty good so too and now we're just gonna place it down i think that looks pretty good since stenciling is basically a dry brush technique uh you don't really want to dip your brush right into the paint bottle we're gonna use a paint tray here just to pour a little paint on it yeah and you really don't need a lot of paint that's the great thing about stenciling that good yeah i think that's all right that will work so i'm going to just add a little bit of paint and you want to tap tap tap that paint i am offloading a lot of that pain and it will cause bleeding if you add too much pain okay that looks great as you can see i'm really taking my time and i'm starting from the edge and moving in towards the center think about working in layers you don't want to start with a heavy layer first you want to start light and then build up the paint as you go and you don't want to push too hard yeah and if you notice in some of our other videos this is exactly how we stenciled on our bird feeder we also did the um iron on freezer paper for our beard wax and then also our famous jute rug never again never again actually that came out really cute yeah it's really cute oh my god back in the 80s my mom used to stencil everything every day the walls the whole thing it was crazy we should talk about that i feel like all the baskets were stenciled the bathroom the living room all over she even did like a whole panel like across her bedroom all right you want to wait to peel your stencil you want to let the paint set a little bit because if you remove the stencil too quickly while the paint is wet you might bleed it might not have a clean line not worth it so i think we waited a minute or two because this paint dries very quickly um let's see how it turned out i like feel nice and slowly yes please four hands for this tiny little stint oh my gosh oh my gosh wow looks like the tools of the trade goods the trade looks really good it does now if you have imperfections don't worry stenciling will never be 100 perfect but that's also what comes with the look yes it's part of its charm absolutely another great way to stencil on fabric is by using freezer paper you can either purchase freezer paper online or at your local grocery store we printed our image right on our freezer paper and now i'm just going to cut it off with our craft knife we printed our image on freezer paper and now i'm just going to cut it off with our craft knife wait what cut it out cut it out okay we printed our image on freezer paper and now i'm just going to cut it out with our craft knife you want to use the same technique dabbing and offloading your brush and then tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tapping it on your fabric and then you can peel it right off and voila oh too many taps you can even stencil on a rougher material like we did on our jute rope rug and for this you're going to notice that you're not going to get a lot of detail so pick a stencil that's a little more basic you can still get a lot of color but you're not going to get those fine lines that you would when you're working on just plain fabric so we talked about stenciling on fabrics now let's talk about stenciling on harder materials we're using a stencil that's cut out of vinyl we cut it with a cutting machine but if you don't have a vinyl stencil you can use the spray adhesive you just want to make sure that it's tacked down really well since it is a slick surface we use the same technique we dipped our brush in the paint and then we tapped off some of the paint and then did a light layer tap tap tap tap tap until we got the look that we liked yeah you definitely don't want to overload the paint it will definitely bleed a little dab will do you all right now cleaning your stencils now to clean your stencils a good way to do it is to grab a cookie sheet and pour some hot water and then you can lay your stencil right in and let it soak you can let it soak overnight or just for a couple of hours and that will help get that dry paint off yeah stencils are made to be used over and over and over again so you don't want to use your stencil once and then toss it clean it so you want to go nice and lightly just so you don't damage any of those details and as you can see this is coming right off ideally you want to let this air dry but you can also if you're working quickly and you got got to keep stenciling you can dab it with a dry paper towel until it is completely dry now if you're doing a repeating pattern with your stencil you can take that stencil wash it right away and dry it and then keep on using it between coats it's important to store your stencil nice and flat but if your stencils do bend don't worry you can fix that put them under a heavy pile of books or you can even lightly bend them the opposite direction and that will help them lay nice and flat you really don't want to bend stencil because you will get a lot of bleeding well we hope our tips helped you become a stenciling pro we want to hear about your next project in a comment below give us a thumbs up subscribe and we'll see you soon bye youand you want to tap tap to attach that paint um all right hello i'm dennis i'm andrew we're the crafty lumberjacks welcome back to handmade if you've been watching a lot of our projects lately you know we've been stenciling a lot yes and stenciling is a great way to add a personal touch to any project it may seem intimidating but if you have the right skills and the right tools you can stencil just about anything we'll show you the tools of the trade so let's talk application tools you can use a brush a sponge a dabber or a roller yeah ideally you want something with a flat top that's good for dabbing or swirling uh we like to use a natural bristle brush um but just a tip before you start stenciling you want to make sure you get any of these loose fibers off of there yeah you really don't want that to screw up your work oop did you see that one fly i did there it goes uh let's talk let's talk let's talk adhesive let's don't get adhesive i mean let's talk adhesive adhesive all right but stock adhesive you're going to want to use something for your stencil to stick to whatever surface you're working on um because uh you want nice clean lines yeah and you also oh sorry i'm so sorry no that's okay i mean what do you need to say no nothing i thought just kidding um all right let's talk adhesive you want to use an adhesive for your stencil to stick to the surface of whatever you're working with uh for that you can either use a spray adhesive painters tape or they even sell stencils with adhesive backing this is gonna prevent from bleeding from any of your paint and also give you nice clean lines let's talk paint a multi-surface craft paint will work for most projects just check the back to make sure it will work for your material but the one paint you don't want to use is oil-based paint oh no you better don't no um if you use an oil-based paint you're really not going to get any clean lines it's most likely to bleed right through the stencil all right let's start with our first project we're going to start with a tea towel since we're stenciling on a tea towel we're going to be using fabric paint because it is a piece of fabric yeah and we're going to be using a stencil but we're going to add some spray adhesive to the back to get it nice and stuck down that made sense right and we're going to be adding spray adhesive to our stencil to make it nice and secure perfect a little goes a long way you really don't want to over saturate it we're gonna let it sit for just a couple seconds so it gets a little tacky all right all right i think that's pretty good so too and now we're just gonna place it down i think that looks pretty good since stenciling is basically a dry brush technique uh you don't really want to dip your brush right into the paint bottle we're gonna use a paint tray here just to pour a little paint on it yeah and you really don't need a lot of paint that's the great thing about stenciling that good yeah i think that's all right that will work so i'm going to just add a little bit of paint and you want to tap tap tap that paint i am offloading a lot of that pain and it will cause bleeding if you add too much pain okay that looks great as you can see i'm really taking my time and i'm starting from the edge and moving in towards the center think about working in layers you don't want to start with a heavy layer first you want to start light and then build up the paint as you go and you don't want to push too hard yeah and if you notice in some of our other videos this is exactly how we stenciled on our bird feeder we also did the um iron on freezer paper for our beard wax and then also our famous jute rug never again never again actually that came out really cute yeah it's really cute oh my god back in the 80s my mom used to stencil everything every day the walls the whole thing it was crazy we should talk about that i feel like all the baskets were stenciled the bathroom the living room all over she even did like a whole panel like across her bedroom all right you want to wait to peel your stencil you want to let the paint set a little bit because if you remove the stencil too quickly while the paint is wet you might bleed it might not have a clean line not worth it so i think we waited a minute or two because this paint dries very quickly um let's see how it turned out i like feel nice and slowly yes please four hands for this tiny little stint oh my gosh oh my gosh wow looks like the tools of the trade goods the trade looks really good it does now if you have imperfections don't worry stenciling will never be 100 perfect but that's also what comes with the look yes it's part of its charm absolutely another great way to stencil on fabric is by using freezer paper you can either purchase freezer paper online or at your local grocery store we printed our image right on our freezer paper and now i'm just going to cut it off with our craft knife we printed our image on freezer paper and now i'm just going to cut it off with our craft knife wait what cut it out cut it out okay we printed our image on freezer paper and now i'm just going to cut it out with our craft knife you want to use the same technique dabbing and offloading your brush and then tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tapping it on your fabric and then you can peel it right off and voila oh too many taps you can even stencil on a rougher material like we did on our jute rope rug and for this you're going to notice that you're not going to get a lot of detail so pick a stencil that's a little more basic you can still get a lot of color but you're not going to get those fine lines that you would when you're working on just plain fabric so we talked about stenciling on fabrics now let's talk about stenciling on harder materials we're using a stencil that's cut out of vinyl we cut it with a cutting machine but if you don't have a vinyl stencil you can use the spray adhesive you just want to make sure that it's tacked down really well since it is a slick surface we use the same technique we dipped our brush in the paint and then we tapped off some of the paint and then did a light layer tap tap tap tap tap until we got the look that we liked yeah you definitely don't want to overload the paint it will definitely bleed a little dab will do you all right now cleaning your stencils now to clean your stencils a good way to do it is to grab a cookie sheet and pour some hot water and then you can lay your stencil right in and let it soak you can let it soak overnight or just for a couple of hours and that will help get that dry paint off yeah stencils are made to be used over and over and over again so you don't want to use your stencil once and then toss it clean it so you want to go nice and lightly just so you don't damage any of those details and as you can see this is coming right off ideally you want to let this air dry but you can also if you're working quickly and you got got to keep stenciling you can dab it with a dry paper towel until it is completely dry now if you're doing a repeating pattern with your stencil you can take that stencil wash it right away and dry it and then keep on using it between coats it's important to store your stencil nice and flat but if your stencils do bend don't worry you can fix that put them under a heavy pile of books or you can even lightly bend them the opposite direction and that will help them lay nice and flat you really don't want to bend stencil because you will get a lot of bleeding well we hope our tips helped you become a stenciling pro we want to hear about your next project in a comment below give us a thumbs up subscribe and we'll see you soon bye youand you want to tap tap to attach that paint um all right hello i'm dennis i'm andrew we're the crafty lumberjacks welcome back to handmade if you've been watching a lot of our projects lately you know we've been stenciling a lot yes and stenciling is a great way to add a personal touch to any project it may seem intimidating but if you have the right skills and the right tools you can stencil just about anything we'll show you the tools of the trade so let's talk application tools you can use a brush a sponge a dabber or a roller yeah ideally you want something with a flat top that's good for dabbing or swirling uh we like to use a natural bristle brush um but just a tip before you start stenciling you want to make sure you get any of these loose fibers off of there yeah you really don't want that to screw up your work oop did you see that one fly i did there it goes uh let's talk let's talk let's talk adhesive let's don't get adhesive i mean let's talk adhesive adhesive all right but stock adhesive you're going to want to use something for your stencil to stick to whatever surface you're working on um because uh you want nice clean lines yeah and you also oh sorry i'm so sorry no that's okay i mean what do you need to say no nothing i thought just kidding um all right let's talk adhesive you want to use an adhesive for your stencil to stick to the surface of whatever you're working with uh for that you can either use a spray adhesive painters tape or they even sell stencils with adhesive backing this is gonna prevent from bleeding from any of your paint and also give you nice clean lines let's talk paint a multi-surface craft paint will work for most projects just check the back to make sure it will work for your material but the one paint you don't want to use is oil-based paint oh no you better don't no um if you use an oil-based paint you're really not going to get any clean lines it's most likely to bleed right through the stencil all right let's start with our first project we're going to start with a tea towel since we're stenciling on a tea towel we're going to be using fabric paint because it is a piece of fabric yeah and we're going to be using a stencil but we're going to add some spray adhesive to the back to get it nice and stuck down that made sense right and we're going to be adding spray adhesive to our stencil to make it nice and secure perfect a little goes a long way you really don't want to over saturate it we're gonna let it sit for just a couple seconds so it gets a little tacky all right all right i think that's pretty good so too and now we're just gonna place it down i think that looks pretty good since stenciling is basically a dry brush technique uh you don't really want to dip your brush right into the paint bottle we're gonna use a paint tray here just to pour a little paint on it yeah and you really don't need a lot of paint that's the great thing about stenciling that good yeah i think that's all right that will work so i'm going to just add a little bit of paint and you want to tap tap tap that paint i am offloading a lot of that pain and it will cause bleeding if you add too much pain okay that looks great as you can see i'm really taking my time and i'm starting from the edge and moving in towards the center think about working in layers you don't want to start with a heavy layer first you want to start light and then build up the paint as you go and you don't want to push too hard yeah and if you notice in some of our other videos this is exactly how we stenciled on our bird feeder we also did the um iron on freezer paper for our beard wax and then also our famous jute rug never again never again actually that came out really cute yeah it's really cute oh my god back in the 80s my mom used to stencil everything every day the walls the whole thing it was crazy we should talk about that i feel like all the baskets were stenciled the bathroom the living room all over she even did like a whole panel like across her bedroom all right you want to wait to peel your stencil you want to let the paint set a little bit because if you remove the stencil too quickly while the paint is wet you might bleed it might not have a clean line not worth it so i think we waited a minute or two because this paint dries very quickly um let's see how it turned out i like feel nice and slowly yes please four hands for this tiny little stint oh my gosh oh my gosh wow looks like the tools of the trade goods the trade looks really good it does now if you have imperfections don't worry stenciling will never be 100 perfect but that's also what comes with the look yes it's part of its charm absolutely another great way to stencil on fabric is by using freezer paper you can either purchase freezer paper online or at your local grocery store we printed our image right on our freezer paper and now i'm just going to cut it off with our craft knife we printed our image on freezer paper and now i'm just going to cut it off with our craft knife wait what cut it out cut it out okay we printed our image on freezer paper and now i'm just going to cut it out with our craft knife you want to use the same technique dabbing and offloading your brush and then tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tapping it on your fabric and then you can peel it right off and voila oh too many taps you can even stencil on a rougher material like we did on our jute rope rug and for this you're going to notice that you're not going to get a lot of detail so pick a stencil that's a little more basic you can still get a lot of color but you're not going to get those fine lines that you would when you're working on just plain fabric so we talked about stenciling on fabrics now let's talk about stenciling on harder materials we're using a stencil that's cut out of vinyl we cut it with a cutting machine but if you don't have a vinyl stencil you can use the spray adhesive you just want to make sure that it's tacked down really well since it is a slick surface we use the same technique we dipped our brush in the paint and then we tapped off some of the paint and then did a light layer tap tap tap tap tap until we got the look that we liked yeah you definitely don't want to overload the paint it will definitely bleed a little dab will do you all right now cleaning your stencils now to clean your stencils a good way to do it is to grab a cookie sheet and pour some hot water and then you can lay your stencil right in and let it soak you can let it soak overnight or just for a couple of hours and that will help get that dry paint off yeah stencils are made to be used over and over and over again so you don't want to use your stencil once and then toss it clean it so you want to go nice and lightly just so you don't damage any of those details and as you can see this is coming right off ideally you want to let this air dry but you can also if you're working quickly and you got got to keep stenciling you can dab it with a dry paper towel until it is completely dry now if you're doing a repeating pattern with your stencil you can take that stencil wash it right away and dry it and then keep on using it between coats it's important to store your stencil nice and flat but if your stencils do bend don't worry you can fix that put them under a heavy pile of books or you can even lightly bend them the opposite direction and that will help them lay nice and flat you really don't want to bend stencil because you will get a lot of bleeding well we hope our tips helped you become a stenciling pro we want to hear about your next project in a comment below give us a thumbs up subscribe and we'll see you soon bye you\n"