by Victoria Larsen

Though stenciling it self is a very easy craft to perform, stenciling with plaster for raised designs on your walls is by far, the easiest thing Ive ever done. Ive always been completely fascinated with the very ornate walls of Victorian homes and mansions. When I discovered that they had used stencils to create plaster designs in our famous White House back in 1905, I was suddenly overtaken with the need to re-develop that art to its fullest. 

Ive seen a hint of plaster stenciling here and there on the Internet and television shows but no one had a line of stencils designed specifically for plaster. My product goal became clear. 

My own home is now extensively plastered with rooms featured on my Website as well. Take the tour. Youll get so many wonderful and creative ideas from the project pages.

Even the beginner exclaims with delight how easy it was and how the whole neighborhood is amazed with the magical feat it must have taken to perform such art on the wall. (It does look like you either spent a fortune or worked your tail end off to accomplish it!).

If you can frost a cake, you can plaster stencil anything.

Heres how easy it is:

• Tape the stencil to the wall (or other project piece).
• Spread a thin layer of Joint Compound (found pre-mixed in your local home store) with a flat edged trowel or 2 wide pallet knife.
• Scrape off the excess, pull the stencil from the wall and there to behold is an ornate design in raised plaster. How easy is that!
• Now let it dry (about 30-45 minutes in most areas).
• Either leave it pure white, paint it your wall color, or add color to the design with a stencil brush and paint.

There is absolutely no end to the things you can decorate with plaster stenciling.

• Walls, cupboards, doors and drawers.
• Wooden boxes, chests and footlockers.
• Vases, lamps, jewel boxes.
• Crates, Welcome signs, canvases meant for painting.
• Flower boxes, Flower pots, Photo Frames.
• Stairway posts, Stairway Fascia boards, Front Porch posts.
• Memory/Scrapbook covers, Memory pages, greeting cards.

Now combine them with ornate cast plaster ornaments (where you pour mixed plaster in to a mold) and you have true Plaster Art that literally costs thousands of dollars to have done to your walls by a professional, but you did it simply and easily and with very little cost.

Any questions you may have about stenciling with paint or plaster, please feel free to email me at victorysprings@yahoo.com.