How to Stencil a Halloween Witchy Welcome Board
This Halloween, let your neighbors where the witches are with this stencil from Oak Lane Studio! Use it to create your own welcome board for home. Not Every Witch Lives in Salem! In this tutorial Oak Lane Studio will take you through the steps to using this vertical porch stencil on a piece of wood. It comes in 5 different sizes from 3” wide and 22” high to 8” wide and 55” high. Try using it on reclaimed wood, pallets, furniture, or even glass with temporary glass paints!
Everything you need to do this project is listed below:
- Not Every Witch Lives in Salem Vertical Porch
- Stencil Brushes
- Americana Acrylic Paints
- Repositionable Spray Adhesive
- Frog Tape Painter’s Tape
- Americana Acrylic Spray Gloss Sealer
- Project Board
- Paper Plate
- Paper Towel
Start by spraying the back of your stencil with Repositionable Spray Adhesive. Hold the can 8-12 inches away as you coat the back of the stencil, then let 30 seconds pass before using. This will allow the temporary adhesive spray to become tacky. Line the stencil up in the center of the board and press it firmly to the surface. All the stencil details should stick flat to the wood. Then use Frog Tape painters’ tape to mask off the edges of the stencil.
To start stenciling, get a bit of black paint onto a paper plate. Take a flat tipped stencil brush and weed out any loose bristles. Then thoroughly swirl the paint into your brush. Next you will want to get a piece of paper towel. Swirl paint off your brush until it is about dry to the touch. Loading the brush with the right amount of paint is crucial, so take time to get this right. Load the bristles with paint then swirl off the excess until the brush feels just about dry to the touch.
Swirl paint lightly and gradually through the stencil design. Paint may not swirl out of the brush smoothly after the first time you load it with paint. After loading the stencil brush a second time, the paint will come off the brush much more smoothly. Swirl paint through the stencil and onto the design edges to entirely color this witch hat black. Make sure that paint doesn’t build on the edges of the design or you may create raised edges around the stencil.
Next, we will add some orange to the design. Swirl the orange acrylic paint into a fresh stencil brush, then swirl the excess off onto paper towel. Swirl orange through the design in 2-3 coats until you reach full color. For each new color you will need to repeat the steps of:
- swirl paint into a clean brush
- swirl paint off onto paper towel until dry to the touch
- swirl paint through the stencil design in 2-3 light coats of paint
- you may need to repeat steps 1-3 if the paint seems like it is not coloring the design, but be careful not to use too much paint!
Stenciling is a gradual process so keep in mind it takes a while to stencil properly. If you rush and use too much paint, you may end up with paint bleed beneath the stencil. Take your time to stencil right. That way you can ensure your results are perfect.
To alternate colors when the design gets close together, start by stenciling the lighter color first.
Next use painters’ tape to mask off the orange to then stencil the darker purple.
Last, mask off the painted portion of the design to stencil the darkest part in black.
If we check beneath the painters tape you can see that each color came out perfectly.
Finish painting the design and peel off the stencil to reveal your work! Peeling off the stencil is the best part!
To protect the paint and give your project a glossy finish, use Americana Glossy Acrylic Spray on the wood surface. Let the spray dry and your new Halloween welcome board will be ready for your front door! This is the perfect Halloween craft to add to your October decoration bin to take out year after year. The Not Every Witch Lives in Salem stencil is cut out of reusable 10 mil mylar, so keep the stencil around for multiple uses. Check out the video below for more information on how to stencil your own verticle porch sign!