Look around you… Get inspired… or how to use your home sources to design a stencil !

One can think designing a stencil is a difficult task, that to achieve that you must be a designer and have a lot of technical skills and that can be true. But I want to show you here that you can find inspiration around you to extract designs that will make a beautiful stencil you can use to adorn your house.

For this special design I used an old book cover for inspiration. Off course you have to be very careful with copyright regulations specially if you are going to use your design for commercial purpose but if you use your chosen design in a very different way and you transform it quite a bit then you should not be worried to break any rules.

My book, i purchased in a car boot sales many years ago I have always had something about “The coral island” and I have many copies around the house from different publishers all pretty old and some with a great cover. So this one was printed by Blackie Publishers in Glasgow at the turn of the century and was offered to a David by someone called Bertha for Xmas 1917. I did not read this copy but I bought it because of the floral design on the cover and that was before a became passionate about stencils.

In this instance I just simply photocopy the cover blowing it up by 3 and extracted the design in the middle of the whole motif to create a single motif that I have been using on cushion covers, borders and even allowed some of my friends to borrow it as this design can only afford to be applied a few times through a scheme.

The important point is to have a design which is very stylised and can offer many separate parts so that when you cut it out it does not fall through.

I leave you to be the judge, I think something could be done with the outside border too… what do you think? I might have a go at some point.

So… do you have any books/print/packaging/ etc… you could turn into a stencil? Off course it does not have to be old fashion some very modern designs can make stylish stencils too.