Making fonts into stencils

Several of you emailed me about the lettering on my Reclaimed Intentions Banner from Friday’s post which included the Intentional Printing book giveaway.

I wish I could say it was my hand printing, but it’s not. I printed it with stencils made from fonts. I’ve made a short video to show you how I make them in Silhouette Studio Designer Software. They are fun, easy, and fast!

Here is a close up of the banner:

banner closeup

And my stencils:

word stencils

The font I am using is Hannotate. As I mentioned on the video, I’m not sure where on the web I found it. I picked it because I thought that it looked more like hand printing than some fonts.  However, there are lots of fonts that will work.  Just make sure the letters are thick enough.

Here is my video. I hope that helps. If you have any questions about making fonts into stencils, please feel free to email me.

 

As I said, I am using Silhouette Studio Designer software. If you don’t have a Silhouette I’m sure other cutting software will do the trick. The reason I bought my Silhouette Portrait was to make stencils and it does an awesome job – just in case you need a little push to buy one!

Another question about that banner that several of you emailed me about was what techniques I used. For those of you who just dropped by recently, I’ve been playing with surface design techniques for several years and it all started with ice dyeing. To make this banner I raided my stash. It was great to see all of the different techniques in one place.

I’ve listed the techniques below the picture starting with the top fabric. There are links to some of the posts about those pieces.

reclaimed banner

  1. soy wax screen printing
  2. ice dyed fabric printed with thermofax screens
  3. soy wax batik with potato masher and fiber reactive dyes
  4. Sun printing with Dye-na-flow
  5. ice dyed fabric
  6. glue resist with textile paints
  7. ice dyed fabric stenciled with screen painting ink
  8. drop cloth (this was the cloth on top of my printing table. No additional printing was added)
  9. Oatmeal resist overdyed
  10. Color Magnet with fiber reactive dyes

Thank you for your questions and kind words. As far as the stencils, I love being able to print so others can read what I’ve written. Sometimes reading the words is not necessary. However, for this project it was so important.

If you’ve not commented on my last post to win Lynn’s Intentional Printing book, be sure and go back and do so. I’ll be drawing the winner on Saturday. Good Luck! And as always, thanks for dropping by.