Have you ever thought about how you can transfer a picture of a friend onto something else, like a tote bag, invitation, or other object? Wouldn’t it be fun if you could take a picture of a friend and make anything from invitations to treat bags? Seems like it would be a complicated affair, doesn’t it – to take most any picture and transfer that image to cloth, wood, metal, glass, and more? All you have to do is turn the picture into a stencil. Does that sound difficult? Rest assured it isn’t.
Use a photograph which is clear and defined. It should be one with really good contrast of light and dark. A close-up picture is best. If you want, copy the photo with your computer so you won’t ruin it. Take a black magic marker and draw shadows under the nose, eyebrows, eyes, lips, and neck.
Place tracing paper or even vellum over the image and draw the outlines. Color in the areas you want colored, like the hair. When the picture looks like you want it to you’re ready to transfer it to the stencil paper.
You’ll find stencil paper at a craft store and it’s made for creating your own stencils, of course. Lay a piece of the stencil paper over the drawing and trace it once again. A light box, which shines light through a piece of glass, can be helpful when it comes to tracing onto the stencil paper. You can set the glass of a picture frame over a cardboard box, set a light inside, then lay your papers on the glass. The light shining through will illuminate the drawing so you can easily trace it.
Use a sharp craft knife to cut out the areas you want to remove to create the stencil. When the stencil is finished you can then use it to transfer the image to a tote bag, party favor sack, paper, cloth, and just about anything else you want.
Tape can help keep the stencil in place while you draw the image on whatever you want. And, the image doesn’t necessarily have to be the picture of a friend. Make a pet stencil, a stencil from a calendar picture, or a stencil from a cartoon character picture out of a magazine. Make many different stencils; it’s fun and easy, plus you get to transfer cool pictures to other things and astonish your friends and family.