Lightbox stenciling tutorial

When you see all those wonderful crafts that involve stenciling, you think, it can't be that hard, right?? Well that was my first thought when I went to stencil my Anna inspired coronation dress. For me, it was a disaster! The paint was mixing, it wasn't going on well at all. Even after buying the very expensive stencil brushes. Grrrr! So after two panels being "stenciled" and wanting to cry, well maybe I did since everyone was in bed already, I packed it up for the night. Settled down with a glass of wine and tried to come up with an idea or two to make the other 10 or 12, if I redid the first two, go much, much smoother.

I remembered that my wonderful husband had made me a light box to help me trace quilt patterns on quilt tops, many moons ago. i.e. before children.  It's what it sounds like. A box to support the light, in my case an old fluoresce bulb light fixture. I'm sure it came out of our house when we remodeled the house. The light is facing up towards the ceiling. The top of the box is clear plastic so the light can shine through. It was originally glass and after leaning on it too hard one afternoon and putting my elbow through the glass, it became a plastic piece. Hmm, maybe that's why it didn't get much use after that incident.

See how nice my husband is to me? He even stained the box my favor stain, cherry. Yes, my sewing room is gated off. Not from any animals, its gated from the crazythings. Their playroom is the next room over.

So now on to the tutorial of how I stenciled my fabric. I placed the light box on the floor, because that is where I had room at the time and I am still young enough for that not to bother me. =) Place it where ever is comfortable for you to be for as long as you have to stencil your project. I taped the stencil I had cut out of cardboard in the center of the light box. I used an old wrapping paper tube cardboard/paper to cut out the stencil.

Then I taped a huge piece of freezer paper over the top of the stencil and the whole top of the light box. Waxy side facing up so that the paint that soaks through will not cause the fabric to become stuck to the freezer paper.

Finally, I centered the piece of fabric on the stencil. I did NOT tape this down. The cut outs of the stencil will appear as lighted cutouts on the piece of fabric.

I then gathered my paints and brushes and went to work, hand painting each panel. This was much easier for me to hand paint in the lighted areas, basically filling them in so no bright light could be seen at the cut out. It was still time consuming, but I was much, much happier with the results after the first piece done. As an added bonus, the heat from the light helped dried the paint so the panels were almost dry when I removed them from the light box. I placed the "wet" panels on a table covered in freezer paper, yes, waxy side up.

I hope this helps anyone else who is stenciling challenged. =)

Thanks for reading!
Just a Mom who sews