How to make your own stencils for painting

A few years ago I was transitioning my son's room from Beatrix Potter to a jungle theme and decided it would be really cool to have glow in the dark animal shapes painted on the ceiling.I looked high and low for animal stencils and stamps that were more than 3-4 inches wide, but could not find anything, so I decided to make my own out of contact paper.

Step 1. Cut out shape for your stencil. I found some animal graphics on the web that I enlarged.

Step 2. Trace the shape with a Sharpie onto a piece of clear contact paper.

Step 3. Carefully cute out the center of the shape, leaving the outside piece of contact paper in tact.

Step 4. Here is the cool part, peel off the back of the contact paper and place it on the ceiling where you want the stencil to be. I found that the contact paper adheres to the ceiling perfectly and keeps the paint for bleeding under the edges (even better than the painters tape), so your shape stays really sharp....even when you are painting the shapes on the ceiling.

Step 5. Paint the shape....I used glow in the dark paint, but this would work with any paint.

Step 6. After the paint dries, simply peel off the contact paper and throw it away.

The glow-in-the- dark paint doesn't show up so well here, but it looks really cool at night!

7. As an added bonus, you can use the inner cut out of the contact paper for another project.