Design Inspiration. Planet Stencil Library.

Celebrating wisteria in an out of the garden.

Whether you want to plant or stencil some wisteria on your walls this post might give some inspiration. Planting a Wisteria was one of the first things I did when The Stencil Library moved to Stocksfield Hall. Over the years it has filled the south wall and is spreading east. If you have no garden you might consider painting a wall of flowers instead

One of our customers showed that with imagination, paint and a stencil of wisteria you can acheive a wall of blooms that need neither sunlight or water.

Mrs B used the LTL11 Wisteria stencil and three colours of acrylic paint: acrylic paint. Alizarine Crimson, Chrome Oxide Green and Medium Magenta.  The wisteria design is offered in two sizes and she chose the small one. 

...and this is the large one! To give an idea of scale, the longest of the flower racemes measures 48" (1239mm) long. So by the tme you add the flowers and twirly bits it creates a dramatic feature wall. 

My skirt is stencilled wth the same design.  The leaves, racemes and stems are all separate stencils and you fit them together in whichever way suits your decorative project.

Stencil no 66 is a simple wisteria border that can make a pretty addition to walls

and TP29 is a good choice for stencilling furniture. I have started taking photos of the stencils when they arrive on the packing desk, I show which stencil brush I would be most likely to use. These are in preparation for a new website, I'm hoping it will help visualise the scale of the stencils.

If you fancied something 'blooming big and bold' try VN185-L it is a two layer repeating design. We've shown it used as a stencilled border and as an allover pattern, there are guide marks on the stencil to help you position it.

We have a similar wisteria tree called JA53 which as yet, I have not used. if you have stencilled it and have pictures I would love to see it. It has a crazy, jagged background pattern which reminds me of Chinese Art Deco.  I did a quick search on The Stencil Library website for wisteria stencils and we have a varied selection. The plant features in Japanese and Chinese decorative arts.  My final image is one that may surprise.

Both wisteria motifs are from our range of Japanese style stencils, they are JA133 and JA134.

I hope that you get to enjoy the sight and scent of wisteria during May. Mine is about to burst into flower and I'm sure that I'll post at least one picture on our Instagram and Facebook page when it does! 

Helen.

 

 

Some stencil projects for the garden

I expect that those of you who have a garden are spending more time than usual in it at the moment.  For the next few weeks I do not forsee me going anywhere other than the four metre commute accross the yard to cut stencils and the short walk to the post office to send them to our customers. So, I may get time to finish some decorating projects. One such project will be to stencil some more garden pots and another fabric gazebo.  I stencilled the Indian style tent in 2018 for my Mum's birthday, the sun hits this spot in late afternoon and early evening so I decorated a dining table.

I intend to create the other stencilled gazebo on the opposite side of the garden.  

I used acrylic paint on the canvas. The stencils were from our Ottoman stencil range and I adjusted some of the sizes. All our stencils are made to order which enables us to offer the same service to our customers.

The seating was made from packaging pallets and hidden under bedsheets decorated with the pheasant border stencil no JA22.

I used True Gold paint from our metallics range, they are machine washable on the material so will withstand the British rain! The stencilled table was protected with exterior varnish bought from a hardware store. 

The plant pots in my pictures were stencilled six years ago and are holding up well. I want to paint some more for the new gazebo.

They were painted with household paint; the kind that sticks to plastic. The stencil was a custom sized F6 Rope design from our stencils for furniture range. None of my garden pots are varnished and the decoration lasts very well.

I used the normal sized rope stencils from our stencils for furniture collection on the chairs.  

If you are inspired to decorate planters in your garden or balcony and would like more information from me just let me know.

Helen.

 

 

How to decorate a cushion cover with a stencil.

In my previous post I promised to try and make helpful 'How To' videos in this time of lock down.  My first one is on this link. The information is based on 30 years experience of stenciling fabric....but zero years of making my own videos. Once I have learned to zoom in and not be headless the tutorials will improve but in 15 minutes you will learn enough from it to successfully decorate a cushion cover with a stencil. The stencil is a custom version of our OTT19 border.

 If it helps to know what I look like whilst you listen to the fabric stencilling video, here's my picture....and yes, I am wearing a stencilled dress.

Helen

An Update from The Stencil Library concerning the Covid19 pandemic

To our customers, students and followers. As I write this Chips and I (The Stencil Library team) remain healthy. Our business is located across the yard from our home so we are able to cut and send your stencil orders whilst observing the current distancing advice. We are taking extra care with hygiene in the cutting and packing area.  As long as we remain healthy and the domestic and international postal services are functioning we should be able to continue our mail order service to you, but delivery services may be slower than usual. 

Our classes, events and tours at The Stencil Library have ceased until we are told that it is safe to resume. I thank all the people that opted for postponement rather than cancelling but any students that prefer a refund will be given one.

In this time of social distancing or isolation you may welcome a creative project to focus on. To start with, I plan to catch up on furniture painting projects and I may get my holiday cards stencilled this year!

I hope to make some mini videos sharing a few of the decorating projects in case they are helpful. I'll try to post mini tours of some rooms in our stencilled home; I shall need a reason to keep the place tidy while there are no visitors and it is good to keep in touch albeit virtually rather than in person.  

The videos and projects will be on our Instagram page and when I figure out how to edit and upload to YouTube and our Facebook page I'll do that too. There is content up there showing me teaching various stencilling techniques, you might them useful.   Search 'Helen Morris stencil' and you should find some. They were not made by me so any helpful tips on making video from an iPad that you can tell me are most welcome!

Thank you to those that of you that continue to buy our stencils. If our situation changes for better or worse I will let you know. For now I wish everyone of you safety and kindness. 

Helen.

 

A screened in porch gets a stylish and practical stencilled floor.

Kris from Florida wrote me an email and asked 'In your tile selection MD23, do any of the sizes have the cutouts in about a 1” x 2” size?'

Well, no I replied but we can make you one....and we did. We resized our design and added extra pattern repeats because Kris had told us it was to stencil a floor and I have stencilled enough floors to know that extra pattern repeats will lessen the time spent bending and crawling.  This was good news to Kris who told us 'the design is exactly what I want, I’m very excited! All the other custom stencils I found had stencils that were under a foot square in size….At 240 square feet of floor, I’d be on my knees for years!!'

He opted to have it made in our medium weight 180-micron stencil film because he said 'I expect to beat this up over the next many weeks'.

I heard from Kris again the other day. he wrote 'I thought you might be interested in what your stencils did for my little screened in porch. I was not able to tile it inexpensively as I wanted and I saw a vinyl pattern that I loved but I couldn’t use vinyl for this room. I thought this tile pattern would look like a Victorian conservatory. It’s a room that gets wet and had indoor/outdoor carpet that was ugly and stained. with 3 coats of gloss oil based polyurethane this design really looks like tile - and it’s waterproof. With varying pressures of the stencil brush, it ended up looking quite like gray marble tile. Thanks a million!'

I think it looks fabulous and told him as soon as I saw the picture.

Can I publish this on my blog I asked? Thank you Kris.

If you want an MD23 basket weave stencil in one of our normal sizes you can order it from our site, if you need it customising like Kris did. Just contact us for help.

Helen.