A Travellers Guide to Stencil Art

Stencil graffiti is quickly becoming one of the most popular parts of the underground art scene, and it seems politics too after David Cameron gave Barack Obama a piece of street art on his last state visit.

In this blog we will be giving a quick stop tour around some of the world’s finest works of art illegally hung on walls around the world.

Mantis

Firstly we start off with an artist called “Mantis”. Mantis is a London based artist fighting for wall space in and around Old Street. Mantis is most famous for painting over Banksy’s famous Pulp Fiction stencil on Old Street roundabout and replacing it with two African orphaned children holding banana skins.

His style is more politically orientated stencils of nuclear war, famine and corporate greed.

You can also see his work around the Shoreditch area, London.

Jef Aerosol

This artist is one of the kings of the stencil art scene and has been producing work across France for around 30 years. His mark can also be found in London, Lisbon, Venice, Rome, Amsterdam, Chicago, New York, Brussels and Beijing (specifically the Great Wall of China)

His most famous pieces of work are Jimi Hendrix, Sitting Kid, Twiggy and many more.

B-Toy

This duo is made up of Andrea Michaelsson and Ilia Mayer. There unique fantasy worlds have been spicing up the streets of Barcelona for the best part of a decade. They merge 1930s movie stars and ancient Greek mythology, their style has won many plaudits on both sides of the Atlantic with exhibitions in LA and London. Their style also implements Anime style portraits tying in with the fantasy element.

Merry Christmas from The Stencil Warehouse!

Just a quick post to wish all of our lovely customers a very happy and healthy Christmas and prosperous New Year! We would like to thank you all for your custom in 2015 and hope to see you all again come the New Year!

If you’re still hoping to make your own festive decorations, Christmas cards or decorate your own wrapping paper and would like some of our festive stencils to help you create some masterpieces, there is still time! You can still order now and receive your lovely stencils before Santa arrives. (You should allow for four to five days for delivery within the UK.)

Remember that we also have fun, festive coffee and cake stencils, to add the extra Christmas sparkle to you culinary delights. Take this happy little snow man for example – bound to bring a smile to both childrens and adults faces!

The best thing about these designs it that they can be ordered for use of both drinks (topping that Christmassy Irish coffee for example), and for dusting cocoa and icing sugar on to Christmas Cakes and desserts! 

Our various festive designs will add that extra touch to your Christmas treats.

So Merry Christmas everyone! If you do use any of our lovely Christmassy stencils, we’d love to see pictures of your creations. Please email them into us, send us a tweet of them or post the on our Facebook timeline!

The Stencil Warehouse x

Using stencils this Winter!

It’s time to wake up and smell the (cinnamon flavoured) coffee – winter is coming! Most people moan about these colder months – the shorter days and miserable weather do tend to make us want to hibernate we must admit.

But there are so many things to love about winter as well! For a start, in the dead of winter, the sun doesn't rise until at least seven – so you get to experience beautiful sunrises. We have Halloween and Bonfire night which, let’s face it, are great fun! There’s hot chocolate, woolly hats and of course, the best day of the year – Christmas!

The winter months are full of things to get excited about, and one of them is Stencilling. Christmas is the perfect time to experiment and improve your stencilling skills while having great fun!

We have a great range of Christmas stencils which are perfect for adding that festive touch during these cold winter months! You can use our beautiful designs with paints and glitter for making your own greetings cards, personalising decorations, or designing gift wrap! You can even use them with spray snow on your windows!

The great thing about our seasonal designs is that they are all available in a variety of sizes, giving you a great deal of flexibility for your seasonal decorating and craft projects! These are perfect for dark, cold winter evenings with the kids. You can really get your creative juices flowing and create make beautiful, personal designs!

If you prefer your Christmas decorations to be of the tasty edible variety, we also have a variety of Christmas cake and cappuccino stencils which are cut in a food-safe plastic and are suitable for use with icing, chocolate and even edible glitter!

Our new cake stencils are made of food safe 175 micron plastic - which is a lot thinner than the coffee plastic and so is much easier to decorate your cakes with!!

These are great fun for decorating seasonal and celebration cakes, biscuits and drinks for you to share with your family and friends.

We think these also think these make great Christmas gifts! If you have someone in your life that loves baking or is into arts and crafts, why not buy them a Christmas themed stencil or coffee and cake duster? You can even get them a personalised design!

Email us at info@stencilwarehouse.com or give us a call on 01271 882615 if you would like some more information. 

Get into the Halloween spirit this year!

Halloween is a holiday that many people either get super excited about, or are pretty nonplussed by. It is traditionally an American Holiday, but over the decade or so the British have really started to embrace the spooky celebrations!  Whatever category you fall under, we’re going to try and boost your Halloween excitement this year with a few things from Stencil Warehouse!

Coffee and Cake Dusters!

If you’re not crazy about going all out with decorations, why not try this subtle spooky addition! Check out our spooky coffee and cake dusters – the perfect way to spooky-up your Halloween food and drink! We have many to choose from...

Pumpkin Stencils!

Whether you’re young or old, people of all ages love pumpkin carving! We have a great range of Pumpkin Carving Stencil’s – because we know it can be really frustrating if you’re not naturally artistic! Great fun for all the family, you can have fun and improve your pumpkin carving technique by using these stencils as a guide for your pumpkin design success! We use a long lasting robust flexible material to help outline the design on to your pumpkins year after year...

Posters and banners

Why not go all out and decorate the front of your home with happy Halloween and banners! A great way to entertain the kids on a cold October afternoon, you can have an afternoon creating your own banners using our stencils!

We hope that you enjoy this Halloween and get creative! If you’re considering larger stencil projects in the further, Halloween is a great time to practice and hone in on your stencilling skills! If you know someone who LOVES Halloween, you could even by them a personalised spooky Halloween stencil!

Take a look at our Halloween themed stencils here- or give us a call on – 44 (0) 1271 882615 if you have any questions!

More things you can stencil!

We’ve told you about some of the amazing uses for stencils, from kitchen backsplashes and elaborate wallpaper designs, to floor stencils and quirky ceiling stencils... but there’s even more!

Our stencils can be used not only on surfaces like walls, ceiling and floors, but they are great on furniture, which you can read all about in our blog: Our Top Tips for Stencilling your Furniture, but what else can you decorate and enhance with a stencil?

Soft Furnishings!!

Do you have old pillows and cushion, bedspreads, table linen and blankets that are a bit old, dated or lack lustre? Well instead of forking out a fortune for new, exciting items, why not enhance your own! Stencils can give items a really lease of life! From polka dots, to flowers, chic chevron patterns, to butterflies, there’s a pattern to sit everyone’s tastes and styles!

If there’s nothing wrong with your items other than a lack of style, there is absolutely no need to replace them! By stencilling onto these fabrics you are not only saving yourself money- but you can also have fun with it! We can’t think of a batter was to spend a Sunday afternoon...

Clothes!!

This is a really great way to make your clothes unique and personal to you. There’s nothing worse than turning up to a party wearing the same outfit as someone else, but if you personalise your clothes with stencils you’ll never have to worry about this happening to you again! Particularly great if you have young children, you can stencil onto almost any item on clothing! We’re sure a little girl would love to spend the day decorating her clothes with some pretty flowers and hearts. Or maybe you little boy in dinosaur or car obsessed? A cheap and economical way to make their clothes more exciting and a great way to keep them entertained for a day – what’s not to love?

Lampshades!!

A fabulously bright and vivid lamp or light shade is such a great way to give a room a facelift! You can grab a plain coloured lampshade on the high street and still get change from a fiver these days. So why not grab yourself one and jazz it up with your own personalised stencil design! As we said, this is a wonderful, cheap and easy, and FUN way to brighten up your home!

Do you have any other creative ideas for your stencils? We’d love to hear them so please let us know by commenting, or getting in touch on our social media channels! In the mean time, if you want to get stencilling your cushion covers, old t-shirts or bedside table lamps, you can find a beautiful range of stencils on our website! And don’t forget about our fantastic custom stencil service.

Our Top Tips for Stencilling your Furniture

Freecycling and upcycling is all the rage at the moment and it’s clear to see why. It’s a lovely and fulfilling thing to take an old, used and abandoned piece of furniture and make it beautiful. We love recovering old pieces and giving them a new lease of life, and what we really love is using stencilling on our freecycling projects.

If you haven’t tried our stencilling on furniture before you may be missing out on some great opportunities to completely restyle and rejuvenate your old pieces!

Here are some of our top tips for stencilling your furniture....

Allow yourself ample time

Furniture stencilling can be very labour intensive because there are so many intricate steps and layers involved. Because you’ll be decorating three-dimensional objects, you will often have to paint details in around awkward and curved areas. It is important to plan properly and make sure you allow enough time for each layer of paint (e.g. primer / base / varnish) to dry thoroughly between applications. Take your time and ensure you use the correct paint and application method to enhance your project.

Do it right, do it once!

If you do take care to do each layer of primer, basecoat, painting, antiquing, and finish coat right, you’ll only have to do it once! You don't want to have regrets about brush marks you should have sanded down when it’s too late, or realise that a roller or sponge application would have given a better result.

Look for cheap antiques to paint

When learning how to stencil it’s a good idea to scour carboot sales and charity shops for inexpensive furniture with interesting lines such as turned legs and carved detailing. Lower quality woods or slightly damaged veneered surfaces are crying out for a painted and stencilled treatment, and they’re a great way to practise before you paint a more expensive piece. Do try as many finishes and application methods as possible on various base layers, so that you're teaching yourself as you go along. Don't be afraid to try things out. Try sprays, chalk paint, antiquing, varnishing, even try taking off layers and not just adding them!

Work with a limited palette
You can gracefully combine different patterns by sticking to a limited palette. We suggest only using a couple of different colours to start off with. This will not only lower the chances of mistakes but will also prevent your designs becoming too busy. However you shouldn’t be afraid to be bold. Stencilled furniture can be used as a statement piece in a room, adding a little excitement to a space.

And remember, every stencilling project is different, so practice with different techniques, paints and surfaces and you'll soon get the confidence to tackle any project!

Ceiling Stencils!

We spend hours upon hours choosing what furnishings and accessories to put in our homes, and we spend even more time searching for the right paints, stencils and wallpaper for our walls. But we seem to always forget one aspect of our interiors – our ceilings.

Take a moment to glance up... What do you see? A plain, bare, magnolia ceiling looking back at you? Don’t worry; we’re sure you’re not alone. The majority of people forget about their ceilings when in fact they can make a massive difference to a room.

Well here at Stencil Warehouse, we think that you should consider using our stencils to add a fun pattern to your ceiling!

Painted detailing around a hanging pendant light or chandelier really can look stunning. Commissioning a professional to add one in your home can be extremely expensive! Luckily, you can easily recreate the look all by yourself using one of our stencil designs!

This Pretty Wreath Stencil can be used as a ceiling rose surround with great effect! You can use a classic colour or get creative and use various pop-out colours that will bring out accents in your furnishings. You could even re-use the stencil on a circular table top to integrate the theme, or perhaps on soft furnishings such as cushion covers?

Our Celtic Stencil makes a perfect decorative border and can be used for stencilling at both dado or ceiling level. It can take strong colours and fits perfectly in large rooms with high ceilings. This is just one of many border and corner stencils we have which work equally well on ceilings as on walls.

If you want to go even further, we think some of our large wall stencil designs look absolute beautiful on a ceiling. Take this Interlocking circles all-over Stencil, a stunning yet simple design of interlocking circles. A big, bold and contemporary stencil design, this stencil could be painted in bold contrasting colours or in muted shades for a softer feel. Again, the design could even be used on fabrics and furnishings to continue the theme.

Feeling inspired? Why not give it a go? Make sure you send or tweet us in your pictures with your results!  And if you’re still unsure, you can always give us a call, we’re always happy to answer any question you may have. Happy Stencilling!