How to Make a Stencil With a Cricut

This post was sponsored by Cricut.

I’ll be honest—I have traditionally not loved working with stencils because I find it super hard to get clean paint lines. No matter how hard I try to paint carefully and how much tape I use to hold them in place, there is always paint bleeding and smudging.

However, using stencil vinyl when painting means that the entire stencil is adhesive and doesn’t move at all! While you can’t reuse DIY stencils made using Cricut’s stencil vinyl, the great results you get make it worth the single-use for me. Even on a dimpled and imperfect surface. 

To really put vinyl stencils to the test, I cut a few large leaf shapes and tried them out on cheap concrete pavers. I just used acrylic paint for this—one was specifically for outdoors and one said it was “weather-resistant”—and didn’t add any additional sealant.

Step 1: Design your stencil

I wanted to do leaf designs for my paver stencils, so I just searched different variations of “leaf” in Design Space. Since each of my pavers is 12” by 12” I made a square that size in Design Space to help visualize the designs. (I deleted the squares before cutting).

Step 2: Cut stencils on your Cricut

The stencil vinyl doesn’t need to be turned over on the mat or mirrored. Lay the stencil vinyl on the mat and choose “stencil vinyl” in Design Space. If you’re using an Explore machine as I was, you’ll need to move the dial on the machine to “custom” first. Then select stencil vinyl.

After your machine does its thing, weed out the negative space. This might seem obvious, but I am so used to weeding out the vinyl around a cut design that I almost did that! For stencils, you’re obviously weeding out the actual design. 

I mean, if that’s the part you want to paint. Basically, think of it this way: remove the vinyl in the areas you want to paint. Again, I know it’s obvious, but it did trip me up at first! You can leave everything else on the paper backing.

Step 3: Wash pavers & dry pavers

I recommend giving the pavers a quick scrub with any sort of mild soap. Especially if they’ve been sitting outside for a while as mine have. But they come pretty dirty even from the store. 

At the very least, hose them off using the “jet” setting to remove debris. Then sit them in the sun to dry thoroughly. Getting the surface as clean as possible will not only help the stencil adhere, it will help the paint adhere too.

Step 4: Apply each stencil

Alright, I won’t lie to you here—the most frustrating part of this was getting the stencil in place! I wasn’t really thinking when I made these bigger stencils. I ended up having the most success peeling off the backing of the top part of the stencil first.

Then I tried to slowly peel the backing off as I positioned the stencil. Did this work each time? No, lol. Most of the time the stencil came off and stuck to itself. Or the wind blew and messed me up.

But the stencil vinyl is pretty forgiving, and I was able to easily peel it off of itself and positioned it on the paver. I was also able to reposition it without it losing too much of its stickiness. Overall, it was kind of tedious, but it worked great in the end.

Step 5: Paint with acrylic paint

Now the fun part! Look at the stencil kind of at eye level to see if you can spot any bumps or gaps between the vinyl and the paver. Smooth out as necessary, and gently apply pressure all around the stencil vinyl to get a good bond.

Use a sponge stencil brush to blot the paint onto the paver. This does wonders to help prevent bleeding. It also helps to stop you from peeling the adhesive up like brushing sometimes does. Blot all over the stencil, checking the seal between the vinyl and the paver as you paint.

Step 6: Remove adhesive stencil

When you’ve done painting but while the paint is still wet, peel the stencil off. Careful! Paint is tough to get off of the concrete, so don’t let the wet paint on the stencil brush the un-stenciled area of the paver.

I ended up going a little crazy and painting one of the pavers on top of our DIY concrete paver coffee table out on the patio! It’s a few years old now, so I thought, why not give it a bit of a face lift?!

It mostly holds plants these days, so the leaf stencils were very fitting. The Top Notch brand paint went on great, and the FolkArt metallic color is gorgeous.

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