New Toy - Scan N Cut 2 - Making Stencils

For over a year I've been considering a Cricut machine for making stencils.  I tried using a stencil burning tool but to me was too slow and too tedious with less than desirable results.  As I was ready to take the plunge, I wrote a dear friend (very knowledgeable with various crafts and gizmos) telling her what I was hoping to do and asking which machine I should get.  One of the main things I hoped to achieve was to be able to use shapes of some of my own drawings (like bears or people).  She recommended instead of the Cricut, to get the Scan N Cut machine because that way I could scan in my own artwork.

The stencils I want to make are for my journaling.  My goal is to make stencils the size of a journal page with all the shapes repetitively laid to fit on that page..........like squares or circles for making color or ink charts. etc.   This would save me time compared to taking ruler and pen drawing all the lines and shapes needed or using a single stencil shape and having to repeat it over and over until I achieved the number I needed on the page.

Other shapes I want to make, like my bears, are so I can quickly get them sketched on a page in order to play with wet in wet colors and then go back and add details (as shown below).

I spent hours using photoshop elements to create my originals to scan of repeated shapes and a few of my bears and people.  Then yesterday I spent the entire day getting them into the Scan N Cut and finally cutting my stencils.  I think once I have the mechanics down with steps necessary, it won't take as long.  I'm still learning my machine and the menu structure.

How I've used a couple of the stencils so far:

The stencil with squares helped me to work exercises I'm doing with pen and ink.  The left page was worked first using a stencil I had with a single square.  I had to make each square one at a time lining them up to each other.  Took quite a bit of time to get all my squares down on the page.

The page on the right was using my created stencil making it so much easier and quicker so I could get right to my pen stroke practice.

This next shows how I can use shapes from my own sketches.  I located my digital scanned files of my mini bear I've sketched and/or painted in various poses.

Next I created this page group changing to black and white by using the threshold adjustment in Photoshop Elements.   I printed these off and then took a black magic marker to outline each shape to make it easier for the Scan N Cut to determine a nice smooth outline for cutting.

I had to then split these up into two files to fit on the size template material I'd be using as you can see in the photo of stencils above showing the templates I created.

This evening I thought I would try one of my bear template shapes to play with color wet in wet.  This page was worked in the Strathmore Visual WC journal using my Sharpie Pen (F).  The first bear I worked is to the far right.  I worked the softer looking bear second and find I really like the triad combination I chose.

Steps photographed (cell phone) along the way (forgot to photograph the initial pencil outline from stencil....ooops).