How to Make Stencils

Video Transcript

"Hi, my name is Miss Nancy, and I'm an elementary school teacher down here in Tampa, Florida. And today, we are going to learn how to make a stencil. What you're going to need are little pieces of...in this case, we're using construction paper. You can use cardboard, really, even the cardboard that comes in a shirt is probably best. And take this, and you're going to want to cut out the center of whatever design you want. In this case, we're going to make it easy on ourselves. We're going to fold it in half and cut...oh, let's just cut what looks like a triangle. Oh. She already did a triangle. But see, even though it looks like a triangle, when you open it up, it's a diamond. And then you can take this stencil and lay it down on a piece of paper, and we color over it. The color, of course, goes some on the orange and some on the paper beneath it, but that way, it gives us a nice, clean line and it makes a design that we can continue. We can even move it over a little bit and do that same design again. And the advantage of using a stencil is that every time we color on it, it will always be the exact same size and the exact same shape as we've cut out before. And any stencil that you want to make is just fine. Any type that you want to cut it open, as long as there's an open hole and paper surrounding it. You can even slice into the paper, cut your stencil, and then just hold it or tape it back together. But we like it best if it's all one big piece. It just makes it a little bit easier. And that is how you make a stencil."