This Christmas Season turn any scrap wood into a decorative Christmas Countdown chalkboard with MyCraftyStencils.com! Our reusable Christmas Countdown Calendar stencil is an easy craft to do with kids, and trendy enough for a modern Christmas element in your own home! Follow along in this tutorial for inspiration on how to use this Christmas Calendar stencil for yourself on anything from wood, slate, canvas, glass, or fabric.
MyCraftyStencils.com offers the deluxe kit that comes with:
- 9” x 12” Christmas Countdown Calendar Stencil
- Holly Green, Santa Red, and White Americana Acrylic Paints
- Repositionable Spray Adhesive
- 3 Pack of Craft Stencil Brushes
- Frog Tape Painter’s Tape
- And Krylon Chalkboard Spray Paint and Tape Measure purchased separately
Start by measuring the area for the chalkboard. To give the edges a framed effect we need to center and mask off the area around the stencil. Line the stencil up with the corner of the wood. Then measure the space from the side of the stencil to the edge of the wood. Measure again from the top of the stencil to the top edge of the wood.
Split the distance from the side and top in half. Use a pencil and tape measure to make small dots along the top, bottom, and side of the wood.
Line the edges of the stencil up with the dots to make sure that it is perfectly centered. You can lightly trace the stencil with the pencil to connect the dots.
All that is left to create your chalkboard is to mask off the edges with painters’ tape and use the Chalkboard spray paint. Follow the directions on the can and do this in a well-ventilated area.
Keep in mind that the paint may take a day to cure before you are ready to use with chalk. Once it is dry to the touch in about an hour you are ready to stencil with your acrylic paints.
Prepare your stencil by applying Stencilease Repositionable Spray Adhesive to the back. Hold the can 8-12 inches away and thoroughly cover it with a thin coat of Repositionable Spray Adhesive. Make sure not too be too generous with the spray as a little goes a long way. What gives Stencilease Repositionable Spray Adhesive a strong but temporary bond is letting it dry for about 15-30 seconds before using on your surface. This allows the adhesive to become tacky on the back of the stencil without forming a permanent bond. Don’t use the spray before giving it a little time or you may find the stencil adhered to your surface!
After waiting 15-30 seconds, press the stencil to the center of your new chalkboard. The Repositionable Spray Adhesive should hold all the stencil details flat against chalkboard surface. Then mask off the unpainted edges around the stencil with more painters’ tape. The painters’ tape is not necessary to hold the stencil in place, but protects the edges from your wandering paint brush. It definitely comes in handy!
The most important thing about stenciling is learning how to load your brush properly! It is a process known as the dry brush technique! The dry brush technique prevents paint from bleeding beneath the stencil or building along the stencil edges. Neither of these stencil accidents look good on a finished product.
To avoid these mistakes, you need to make sure your brush feels just about dry to the touch. Do this by swirling your brush into the paint, swirling the excess off onto paper towel then testing it on either your hand or a scrap piece of paper.If the paint comes off the brush so that you think you may only need one coat for the project, that is too much. Swirl more paint off onto paper towel until the bristles feel just slightly damp… almost dry!
Once you reach the right paint consistency on your flat tipped stencil brush you should swirl it through the stencil with a light amount of pressure. As you swirl paint through your stencil it should appear as faint as it does above for the first coat. This ensures that the paint does not build too quickly which could cause little walls of paint built up against the edges of the design. Even worse than raised stencil edges… wet paint likes to run beneath the edges of the stencil which makes the design look blotchy. The key to good stenciling is keeping the amount of paint low and taking things slow.
After 3 coats of using the dry brush technique your design should look like this! No raised paint edges and no paint bleed! Notice that the holly bunches are unpainted. You could mask this section off with painters’ tape for the next step, but I chose to cautiously stencil around it. If you get a little white in that section it is no big deal since you will be stenciling over it in color anyways.
Break out that painters’ tape again to mask off the berries first. Use a fresh stencil brush each time you change colors so that the red does not turn into pink. Use the dry brush technique to swirl three coats of red through your holly berries, hen peel off the tape.
Use your third fresh stencil brush, painters’ tape, and green acrylic paint to stencil the leaves of the holly bunches for the finishing touch!
My favorite part of stenciling is the last step… peel off the Christmas Countdown Calendar stencil off your project surface to reveal the finished product below! This craft is great because you can use it to count down the days until Christmas with your kids year after year. This Christmas Countdown Calendar stencil is reusable too, so you can make one with each of your children. Try stenciling it onto a preexisting chalkboard with chalk, or a white board with dry erase markers. The potential is limitless! Check out the video below for our step-by-step instructional video.
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