Stencil Care & Cleaning

Stencils are a wonderful tool to have on hand. They can perform a supporting role or be the featured attraction.  In order to enjoy many years of use it is important to care for your stencils properly.  The primary concern is to avoid bending your stencils during cleaning.  Intricate  stencils, like those I design, can me damaged if the appropriate process is not followed.  It has  become popular to clean stencils using baby wipes; this will damage stencils with detailed cuts, long curves or pointed elements, which can be snagged and creased.  To protect your stencils practice the following methods to clean them.  The most important aspects to note are placing the stencil on a flat surface and using your fingers to clean.  Using something that can snag the mylar, such as paper towel or wipes,  will result in damage making the stencil unsuitable for certain techniques,  like embossing, because it will no longer lay flat.

Removing Acrylic Paint

Place the stencil flat on a tray and cover with Antibacterial Gel (hand sanitizer). Gently rub the cleaner over the stencil with your fingertips to remove the paint. Disperse the gel with liquid soap. As long as the stencil remains on the wet, flat surface, you may use a brush to gently clean the openings. The wet surface will cause the stencil to hold fast to the flat tray and avoid damage caused by lifting. Rinse the stencil well and lay it flat on a towel to dry. Never clean your stencil without first placing it on a flat surface to avoid bending or creasing the stencil.  

All Brushes Are Not Created Equal

Just as ingredients can determine the success or failure in a recipe so can the tools you choose affect the outcome of your painting or crafting.  

Choosing the right brush for a task makes the exercise not only easier but more enjoyable and produces superior results.  Paint brushes are available in a wide range of prices and quality.  However, somewhere along the way stencil brushes have fallen into the cheap, poor quality category.  For some, the construction was so poor that they could be considered "disposable".  These are truly a case of getting what you pay for. On the other hand there just didn't seem to be a superior quality stencil brush to be found. 

Although countless samples, rejections and revisions were required there is a stencil brush worth buying! But first, a bit of history.  A typical stencil brush is created by grouping the bristles and then shearing off the end resulting in a flat stub.  While you might get by with this for a large, wide open motif, using such a brush will not produce the best results with a stencil of even moderate detail.  This is because the sheared end keeps the bristles on top of the stencil material.  Imagine trying to stencil using a block.  The block is going to rest on top of the stencil material and, if the open span of the motif is large enough, the block will make contact with the surface below in the mid-region but without making contact along an edge or into a corner. Finding a suitable stencil brush was made especially difficult because the stencils that I design are highly detailed and very intricate.

When I set out to develop a brush that not only worked with my stencils but also had a comfortable handle and quality construction I had no idea the road would be so long.  I felt a bit like Goldilocks testing sample after sample.  This one is too firm, that one is too soft, flat, cost prohibitive, the  list went on endlessly.  I have no doubt the factory was sharing my frustration.  It's not like I haven't developed a brush before.  The brushes we currently sell under our RB Classique™ & RB Au Sec™ series were all created under my direction.  The difficulty in developing the RB Artiste™ Stenciler series was the intricacy of my stencils. But persistence has paid off.

Our RB Artiste™ Stenciler series  brushes produce exceptionally crisp lines down to the finest detail. This is possible due to our unique feather-touch tips that are pure natural bristle.  And what about that comfortable handle that I mentioned above? Our new RB Artiste™ Stenciler has a short, contoured wood handle with a satin finish that offers a velvety feel.  If you give these a try I think you'll recognize the marked difference in quality compared to the bulk of the stencil brushes on the market.

I opted for numerical sizing because the brushes do not fall into an exact fractional size. The #4 is approximately 1", while the #2 and #1 are about 1/2" and a scant 3/8" respectively.