Playing with Stencils

November 1, 2013
The word stencil is typically associated with Americana or fussy intricate patterns. Here, Rice changes our attitude with 20 projects. She excels at explaining the basics, beginning with the actual design of the project, and she provides step-by-step color photographs to augment her written instructions. Her aesthetic viewpoint does not depend on one era or one style. Rather, she delights in gathering inspiration from the world, including German paper cutting (scherenschnitte), twentieth-century rustic antiques, mod and pop, Victorian lace, and many others. There's much to admire and choose from here, including shadow-box frames (with paper dolls inside), customer wallpaper, and a dancing-in-the-rain shower curtain. At the end, a rogue's gallerythat is, 10 featured stencilers and their backgrounds, with samples of workwrap up a motivating crafts book.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2013, American Library Association.)