Make your own customized stencil!

This is a great week since it's a 3 day weekend for most, unless you are like me and work everyday, but I am not complaining one bit!

This weeks project is another project I demonstrated myself: How to make a customized stencil!

                Here are the supplies you will need to create your one of a kind stencil:

• Stencil Film, which can be purchased at your local craft store. I purchased mine from Michaels and it costs around $4.
• Exacto knife
  
• Cutting board ( I just used one from my kitchen)
  
• Tape (scotch tape preferably which you should already have)
  
• An image from your computer that you would like to turn into a stencil

The first step is to cut out your desired image that you want to make a stencil out of.

I printed out a copy of my pink dress form logo for MEWfashion.

After your image is all cut out and ready to go, tape it to your cutting board, as pictured above.

Next, place the stencil film over the taped image on the cutting board and tape the stencil film in place as well so it doesn't shift around when you cutting it with the Exacto knife.

Just a forewarning, cutting out your customized stencil can be a tedious task, especially if it's very detailed! So don't get discouraged if it takes you some time. It took me about 30 minutes to cut the pink dress form out. What your basically doing during this step is tracing the image with the Exacto knife. Easy enough, right?

Once you've completed cutting out the stencil, your pretty much done! I was able to use both parts of my stencil, see below:

I forgot to take a picture before I used it, I think I was just to excited!

And below is the outcome, I stenciled some brown scrapbook paper to make into little greeting cards. I used just regular $1 craft paint but I think if I used a thicker paint it wouldn't have bled beyond the stencil outline as much as it did. What are your thoughts? Do you think this is something you could do? I always appreciate feedback :)