The most common materials used to create stencils are vinyl, mylar, acetate, magnet and silk screen mesh.

The following is a quick overview of each stencil type and the suggested application.

1) Vinyl (5 mil or 15 mil) - Ideal for glass etching, painting various types of surfaces, sand blasting and spray painting. Requires bridges -- breaks in a font and enclosed area ~OR~ the use of a stencil font.

2) Mylar (3mil or 5 mil) - Ideal for painting various types of surfaces, spray painting. Comes in clear, transparent blue or transparent yellow. Requires bridges or use of a stencil font.

3) Acetate (3mil or 5 mil) - Ideal for food products (FDA approved), painting various types of surfaces and spray painting. Comes in clear. Requires bridges or use of a stencil font.

4) Magnet - Ideal for creating rhinestone templates. Can be used with a steel board or pan to create rhinestone transfers.

4) Silk Screen - Ideal for glass etching, silk screening fabric, and painting various types of surfaces. Silk screen stencils do not require bridges or breaks in the design.

The artwork for a one-use stencil can be created with bridges or breaks. They are typically created using a die-cutter and applied to a product using transfer tape. However, they can only be used one time and are ideal for one-off projects.

Silk screens stencils are created using a mesh which is covered with a photo emulsion film. These stencils do not require bridges and can be created using almost any font or artwork. Once the image has been developed on the screen, it can be used repeatedly to create etches on several products.

They can be used for glass etching, painting glass or wood, and of course silk-screening fabric. Silk screen stencils can be purchased with and/or without a light adhesive.

With silk screen stencils, the font choices are endless since they do not require bridges or breaks.

You can conduct your own font search and provide the font name of your preferred font using font sites such as dafont.com, fontsquirrel.com, Google Fonts and Adobe Fonts.

Please be advised, thin line fonts and fonts smaller than 10 pt may not be suitable for stencils smaller than 1.0" w.

Yes, you can provide your own artwork, be it text, a logo or custom design.

Prior to submitting a custom silk screen order, we suggest sending us an image of the artwork. A staff member will review it and let you know if it is a good candidate for a silk screen stencil.

When submitting an order, the artwork should be submitted in vector format -- EPS, SVG, AI or a vector-based PDF.

Yes, we do create custom stencil designs.

You can provide a sample of the design(s) or let us know what you would like then Bree or one of our designs will work to bring the design to life.

Custom design prices start at $35 per hour, in addition to the price of the stencil(s).

The standard turnaround time, from digital proof to shipment ranges from 5 to 7 business days. We do offer expedited processing if capacity permits.

Please feel free to call / text us at (929) 333-5694 more info on expedited processing.

If you will be processing a small batch of products of 50 or less, one stencil is probably all you will need. However, if you will be working with 50 or more items, a team, and depending on your time frame, you may want to purchase one stencil for every 75-100 products, to decrease your overall production time.

Glass etching cream is a consumer-based acid that removes the topcoat of a glass product to create an etching of a design.

Some products like Pyrex cookware, wine bottles and some mason jars have a very thick topcoat which prevent the acid from creating an etching -- the coating is too thick for the cream to impact it. Before making a large quantity purchase, we strongly suggest conducting test etching on product to make sure the topcoat is not too thick.

Most standard drinkware glasses and mirrors sold in retail stores and online shops have a light topcoat which is suitable for glass etching. However, we strongly suggest conducting beta tests with the product(s) you intend on using.

To learn more about our silk screen stencils and how to use them, you can view our sample application video on YouTube:

http://youtu.be/AVpcTnVkBX8

For all orders we provide PDF instructions for using a silk screen stencil with etching cream, paint and on fabric for free, plus we are available to answer your questions should you require assistance.

Remember, with do-it-yourself (”DIY”) projects, some customers and clients will produce better results than others. In most cases, results will depend on the variables for a project -- environment, product, materials and user skill set. It is the responsibility of each client/customer to test and practice, and practice and test, to develop a technique and method that works best for your project.