How Does a Stencil Work?

Types of Stencils

You can go to your local craft store and buy a stencil for creating beautiful works of art or just putting lettering on your mailbox. Stencils are just cut outs of letters or objects that you can place on a surface to trace, paint or stain the object and then remove the stencil. There are single stencils and repeating stencils, single letters and whole words.

Uses for Stencils

Like most people, if you are not an artist that can paint flowers and houses freehand, you will need to use a stencil for your project. Some projects are very large like painting a vine all around your living room ceiling. Other project could be very small, like painting a picture on a card you want to give someone. You can use stencils to paint or stain flowers or something matching your theme on your wooden chairs and table.
The most common use would be lettering for banners, mailboxes and plaques. Whatever you decide to make, if you need to paint or stain the object and you can't do it freehand, you can use a stencil.

Making Own Stencils

You can easily make your own stencils by using thin paper and tracing your design. You may have found a vase design in a magazine that you would like to put on a picture your making.
Put the thin paper over it and trace vase onto the paper. Cut it out of the paper and put the paper on something thicker, like card stock or card board. Trace around the cut out onto the card stock or card board and cut it out of that. Now you've made your own stencil to use on your picture. You can also use tracing paper and trace from the magazine picture right on to your thicker paper.
You can create letters on your computer in just about any size you wish. Print them out, trace them onto something thicker and you have your own letter stencils. Be creative and look around the house for designs you like and you can make all the stencils you will ever need.