From a Stamp to a Stencil

I have carved my own stamps for years. Just designs in my head I want to repeat.

But recently I have gotten into making stencils. I have created a line of stencils for Stencil Girl, but sometimes I just like to play with making some small ones for myself.

I came up with the idea (and this has probably been done by many for a long time) to make a stencil from my favorite stamps and then I thought, why not pass it along to you.

So here is the deal:

First, stamp the stamp you want to use onto some card stock

I use black stamp pad here, but whatever you want...just needs to be dark so you can see the shapes

To make the stencil be the opposite of the stamp we want to cut out the white area

so what we want to do is "bridge" areas that would "fall out" when you cut but you want to keep.

Also areas that would be too much space to cut out all at once.

Here you see the area in the lower right. If I was to cut out that white area around the dark, the dark area would fall out also, so I have to bridge it to the rest of the dark area. The black mark on the left is just because I wanted to make that two separate shapes and not all one.

Now it's time to get the exacto (sharp blade to save wear and tear on your hands!)

and start cutting out the while areas

And here we have our stencil...all cut out and ready to go.

On the left I stamped the stamp with black ink

In the Middle I used the stencil to make the new image

and on the right, I turned the stencil upside down with paint on it and printed.

So get out there and see what you can come up with!!

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Thanks for stopping by!

Suzi