While we can burn “RIP” letters on the wood Halloween tombstones we sell in our shop, it’s actually much more fun to order them blank so you can customize them however you like. An easy way to do that is by making a stencil to either paint or burn your design to truly make them your own. We’ll not only cover finding a design for your stencil and cutting it out, but we’ve got some tips on how to make it reusable from plain printer paper, as well as a few things to consider when looking for “stencil” fonts.
#1 – Measure Your Holiday Decoration or Tombstone
It’s always a good idea to measure the total width of your decorations or tombstones so you know the boundary you have to work within. Each reclaimed board will vary in width which can lead to a varying total width. On average, our small to medium holiday blanks and tombstones are 10.5″ wide, while our extra smalls are 5.5″ wide.
If you’re planning to customize a cross tombstone, just remember that you have less height on the face of it due to its shape. A design printed on a regular sheet of printer paper in landscape orientation will still fit just right.
#2 – Choose a Design for Your Stencil
We designed our wood holiday sign blanks and Halloween tombstones so stencils could be made from regular printer paper (8.5″ x 11″ letter format). This gives you some really flexible options when determining your stencil design. Whether you create a stencil design or find one online, you can print in either landscape or portrait orientation for a design that fits nicely on your “wood canvas”.
Finding a Design
This step can be really easy if you just want to use some of the ready-to-print stencil templates that we’ve posted in our Templates section. You can also make stencils from pumpkin carving design kits! The majority of them are already on 8.5″ x 11″ paper, making them perfect for you to move to step #3.
If you have a cutting machine, chances are the marketplace for your brand (Cricut, Silhouette, etc.) has stencil fonts and shapes available for download/purchase. So in this case, all you need to do is make sure you have measured your tombstone and your design is sized accordingly in the software for your cutting machine. We will note that it’s a good idea to use the stencil material for your brand of cutting machine, but you could get away with using card stock several times if used with care.
Using Pre-Cut Stencils
Want to skip this altogether? Check out ready-to-use stencils and stencil kits that you can get almost anywhere. From Hobby Lobby to Michaels and even Walmart, you can find stencils in varying fonts, sizes, shapes, and designs that may work well for you.
If you’re looking to stencil quite a few words, it might be better to create a stencil design in a document or image editor and then cut that out. Even with proper planning, it’s still pretty tedious to use the pre-cut stencil letters. This process involves constantly moving the stencil around for each letter while keeping the spacing and placement on track so it looks good when you are finished.
#3 – Cut out Your Stencil
Cutting machines are an awesome luxury that technology affords us these days. Whether a Cricut or Silhouette, they make this ridiculously easy and save a ton of time. if you don’t have access to a cutting machine, we have you covered with some tips on how to cut your stencil by hand.
Once you have your design, you’ll print the stencil and cut out the pieces with an X-Acto knife or similar hobby knife. Two very important things to remember as you get started:
1. Make sure your blade is either new or still sharp. It’s really easy to tear the paper with a blade that isn’t sharp enough!
2. Make sure you cut on a surface that you don’t care about. If you’re going to cut your stencil out on your nice kitchen table, make sure you have some thick material under your stencil when you cut it out. You can use anything from a cheap clipboard to a couple of layers of cardboard. The goal here is to make sure you protect the surface you’re cutting on top of if you don’t want cut marks on it!
When cutting, you want to ensure the blade isn’t so upright that only the tip is cutting the paper. That’s a surefire way to tear the paper and dull the tip of the blade quickly (if not break it off). Instead, make sure it’s at an angle to take advantage of the length of the blade for cleaner cutting. It’s not always possible depending on how tight the curves and corners may be on your design, but keep this in mind while cutting. You’ll want to cut out and remove anything that is printed, as that is the part that is actually the stencil.
To help minimize ripping and tearing the paper, press down on the paper on either side of the blade as you cut. Keep your fingers at a comfortable distance from the blade to avoid adding some of your blood to the design. The more you support the paper, the less chance there will be tearing it while cutting.
Use the tip of the blade to your advantage while mid-cut. I tend to cut by pulling the blade back towards me. When it is time to change cutting directions due to a corner or a tight curve, I lightly keep the blade tip pressed down while spinning or rotating the paper so I can keep pulling the blade in the same direction. Be sure you don’t pull the paper into the blade while rotating it or you’ll end up tearing or ripping it.
Here’s the tip to make them reusable
There is a trick we use that reduces the chances of tearing the paper when you cut it with a knife that also adds the awesome benefit of making it super reusable; cover both sides of the printed stencil design with basic clear packing tape prior to cutting. Make sure you slightly overlap each strip of tape you lay down on the paper, then use a wadded-up paper towel to wipe and smooth out any bubbles or wrinkles.
We have made several stencils in this manner that we have used literally thousands of times with sharpie markers and they’re still going strong. This actually creates a stencil that you can use with paint, made right from plain printer paper!
Let’s talk about “Stencil” Fonts
If you’re going to create your own stencil design, we really just want to point out what may not be obvious to those who are working with stencils for the first time. While stencil-ready fonts definitely speed up the process to create your own stencil, not all “stencil” fonts are created equal.
When searching for stencil fonts, look closely at the following characters to make sure the font will actually work for stencils: “A B D P Q R 4 6 8 0”. These characters are the easiest to see if they have a “break” in their shape for proper stenciling. See the sample image where the red arrows point out the breaks.
This is important so you don’t end up with any free-floating pieces that you need to keep up with and manually place in order to complete the stencil (like the inside space of an A or an O).
Here’s a good sampling of stencil-ready fonts that we checked out on the internet:
- Google Fonts (they have a few others, but these two would likely turn out the best on old wood holiday decorations, especially for Halloween tombstones)
- Downloadable Fonts from other sites
So, all you need to do now is start painting or burning! And yes, we also have an article on how to burn titled 2 Easy Methods of Burning Letters on Your Wood Holiday Decoration or Halloween Tombstone so be sure to check that out.
We hope this was helpful and would love your feedback in the comments. Be sure to send us pics of your finished work so we can see it!
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