Since I've been doing more art journalling lately, and watching the videos that are part of Creative Jumpstart 20113, I've become more interested in using stencils in some of my work. In addition to buying some fun stencils, I decided to use some of the template plastic I had in my studio (and seldom use...) to make a few basic stencils of my own.
I used a cutting mat, an exacto knife, a fine Sharpie marker and some scrap paper. I found that with the lined template plastic and the marks on the cutting mat it was really hard to see what I was doing so by using a scrap of plain paper under the plastic I could see better. You could also draw your design on the paper first if you wanted, but I drew right on the plastic with the Sharpie.
For the stencil shown here, I used a mug to trace a circle and then just used the lines on the plastic and cut away every second little strip to create a stripped circle stencil. 
This one is very simple and will just give me some straight lines and the final one is my version of what I think of as 'cottage signs'...those wonderful signs that you see on the dirt roads in cottage country directing you to all of the various cottages. I guess it would be good for distance markers too.
I know I'll still buy stencils I see and fall in love with, but it's also nice to be able to make some simple ones, especially onces with straight lines that are easy to cut, so that I have some which are uniquely my own.
