Stencil Stories

I Love stencils, always have. When I was small we used to cut shapes from paper and card. I would colour and scribble and draw through the shapes onto other paper and card. My dad used to make us toys. Jigsaws were a firm favourite. I remember using the odd off cut shapes which were left. These I used as stamps, stencils, or anything I could think of to do with them.


I have a big collection of stencils, quite a few are kept in this box....


.... it's packed to the brim. I'll show you some of them.....


.....some of them have been used many times, some just once, some are waiting for that " certain" project....


.... some of them I was given, a huge pile of unwanted stencils...

....this is just a small selection of them.....


.....i have tiny ones for minute projects and huge ones for wall projects....

.....I have some that accompany books......


.... and I have some from my school days....

...and I love each and every one of them and wouldn't part with a single one.

Sometimes I use just part of a stencil, sometimes I use the whole thing. It just depends on what I'm doing.
I also make my own too, from card, paper, plastic or whatever is to hand or will be suitable.

I use this....
.


....clean plastic packaging. some of these packets were from dies. I cut out the best bits and the rest goes into the recycling ( if it can be recycled) .

I use card......

...any card, or paper.
But I also use these.....

...wash and dry them and then get to work. Cut out all the best bits. I know that sometimes these cartons vary from shop to shop, and some have a textured part. Fear not because that too can be used. ( I'll leave that for another post) It can be cut with scissors to any shape you want. Just draw around, or make the shape you want.. But the best bit is this.....



...if you've got a Sizzix machine,or other die cutting machine, then the possibilities are endless.
There seems to be a growing trend to use stencils once more, ( I hate that word, trend and the phrase "on trend") I don't follow whatever anyone else is doing and do my own thing, and always will. People even call them masks now, but they're all stencils to me. All my life I've been stencilling  on paper, card, walls, fabric, garden pots, sheds, glass, clothes, mirrors, curtains. it's endless what I've done, and I will carry on doing do, whether its "on trend" or not!
But back to the milk cartons, it doesn't stop these because there are other things which you can do with them too.
But that will be on my next post when I've played experimented some more.

Strips, stacks and ready to go!

Well all the tee shirt pile has now been cut into strips for my rag rug....

...all sorted into colour piles ready....

...I've decided not to use any of the striped fabric in this rug. I think I'll use them for something else, at a later date. I used my rotary cutter on an A2 self healing mat and a large metal ruler, one we usually use for picture framing to cut all the pieces. With the fabric being 100% cotton there was quite a lot of fluff flying about, my desk was covered. But, it soon cleaned up.....

... One thing I will mention is that because I also use my mat for paper craft I made sure that I cleaned it well. Because if it's left it could cause heaps of problems when trying to cut nice neat lines on card. Take a look...

...all those cotton fibres which are trapped in the cut will stay there and the surface will be uneven and not very nice. So I cleaned it with a washing up scourer and warm water. It ended up like this.....

...It only took five minutes. If you use your mat just for fabric, well I suppose it doesn't really matter. Anyway, this is all my waste from all that cutting.....

...I put it in this veg storer whilst I was cutting away, to catch it all. Is it waste?

Will it end up in the recycling or on the compost? No, I'm going to try and use it all, ( if I can). The rug which I am making is for my little craft room. The old fitted carpet is being taken out, ( it's been in there for a number of years) and it's being replaced with some vinyl flooring. (I'm hoping to get an off cut reasonable cheap from somewhere as it's a small room) Then at least I have a wipe clean surface for when I'm on messy or wet projects. So the plan is for the waste from my tees to be used as place mats, or coasters, I'm not sure yet, but I'll find a way of utilising them. If you're wondering if I've spent any money on materials for this rug, well the answer is not really. The hessian I've used for the backing was from a huge piece which was given to me. The tee shirts were all ours , worn until they no longer fit, out of shape, or whatever. The wood for the frame was off cuts from one of our gardening projects. I don't count the cost of my time, as I feel that any time spent doing anything creative is more than worth it. Now I just have to decide on a pattern. I'm going straight on to the hessian, from the centre and see what shapes appear. That all begins this evening.