Stencil Mania

We just got the coolest book in at the UCC, and of course, I had to buy one. It's called Stencil 101, and it's a collection of reusable stencils you can tear out and use on practically anything. If you've ever tried to cut your own stencils or buy them individually, you probably learned that a) cutting your own stencil is a huge pain and takes forever, and b) buying individual stencils can get pricey. That's why I was so excited about this book. All of the stencils are already cut out for you and you get a whopping twenty five of them.

It also includes the positive image of every stencil so that you could either shrink them or enlarge them and cut them out yourself if you want to (I see a bedroom mural in my future, if I ever get over how much I hate cutting my own stencils). 

So when I brought the book home, I decided to give it a quick test. This project was so fast and easy, I did it while I was boiling water for pasta.

I started with a blank paper lampshade.

I selected my stencil and taped it on with masking tape. Then I dabbed some white acrylic paint over the design. I wanted a color that would change a lot when the lamp was on versus off, and I thought white would do the trick.

When it was all painted I peeled it off and, voila, much cooler lampshade.

And when I turned it on, totally different. Kind of a watermark effect.

Some of the paint ended up oozing under the stencil because it was on a curved surface and it wasn't completely flat, which doesn't bother me that much, but next time I might try spraying the back of the stencil with a repositionable adhesive so that every part of the design is flush with the curve.

Now I'm looking around my apartment at everything I could stencil...kitchen cupboards next?