Eye Chart Stencil

I received some new stencils this week that I ordered from my favorite source for stencils Maison de Stencils.  They have added so many new, fun, and unique stencils to their website that it was difficult to pick out just a few new ones to order.  Here is the first of the three that arrived this week.  Something about this eye chart caught my eye.  Pun intended.   :)

I decided to hang it in our office along with a couple of my other stenciling projects that I made a couple of years ago.  Here is a link to my Typewriter Keys Tutorial if you are interested in seeing how I did that project.    You can also catch a glimpse of my subway art poster showing all of the addresses we have lived at over the years.  It was a fun project and easy to do with my set of letter and number stencils. 

Here’s how I made the Eye Chart.

    

For my Eye Chart I used a pre-made canvas that I found at Michael’s craft store.   I taped the stencil down with painter’s tape to keep it from shifting while I pounced my brush to add the paint to the stencil.  There is a product that you can get that is a spray adhesive that you can spray the back of your stencil with to help secure it.  Usually the painter’s tape does the job for me but because the canvas I was working with had a bit of texture to it,  I found some of my edges to be not as crisp as when I stencil on other surfaces like cloth.  I would recommend trying to find the spray adhesive if you want to try this project out on canvas like I did.  Without it, I had to go back with a paint brush and straighten out and fill in some of my edges.

I used a black acrylic craft paint and with my stencil brush I pounced up and down to fill in the stencil areas.  I always pounce.  Some people like to use a circular rubbing motion with the stencil brush but I have not been successful with that technique. I usually end up with paint collecting up under the edges when I do that and that causes major smearing.  Pouncing works best my friends. And not too much paint on your brush.  You can always add more and you don’t want glops!

     

Then I took some wood stain that I had and rubbed it on with a cloth to give it an aged look.  That’s it.  After it was dry I hung it up in the office.

I think this would make a cute pillow too.  I will have to keep my eyes out for an oblong pillow that I can recover with Painter’s Cloth and then add this Eye Chart Stencil to it.

One down and two more stencils to go!

I am adding this post to the Creative Creations Link Party over at Kristen’s Creations.