How to stencil a mirror

The stencil is a decorative technique that allows to embellish the walls, the mirrors and the laundry room inside the house. The technique to be followed for realizing the stencils is quite simple and to the course of everybod: you have just to get all the necessary tools and follow the various steps with precision.

Stencil technique

The term stencil literally means mask. This technique is performed thanks to the masks cut outon an acetate sheet or of other material. The masks reproduce the sketch that will be applied for decorating the wall or other elements of the house. There is a wide variety of templates, which are available on the market, especially in DIY stores.

The most common sketches are those that depict elements of nature or also animals or cartoon characters. With attention and above all with great precision, it is possible to create templates on your own.

Thanks to the stencil you can decorate the walls in any part of the house, but this technique will give all its decorative value on objects and furnishings.

For the realization of the stencil are needed, in addition to the mask, other instruments. There are indispensable for the work a sharp knife, brushes and of course the colors, also available in special cans for the stencil.

For decorating the wall can also be used tempera wall while objects are useful acrylics for wood and glass, depending on the material that will run the stencil. Finally, it will take natural sponges to dab the color and alcohol to complete the work.

The stencil provides a basic technique regardless of the element that is meant decorate. If you want to create the template yourself, we must first perform the desired design on the acetate sheet and then cut it out with the help of the cutter.

The mask obtained will then be applied on the element to decorate and held in place with double-sided tape. At this point, you will have to pass, with the brush or the canister, the color between the empty spaces of the drawing. Finally, we must remove the excess color around the bezel, with alcohol.

Stencil technique on mirror

Among the elements that can be decorated with stencil technique, there are some that lend themselves more, by virtue of decorative result you get. This is the case of mirrors which, with their curves, corners and frames are very suitable to be embellished with the stencil. The decorations made on the reflecting surface of a mirror in fact guarantee a superb and surprising aesthetic effect.


Thanks to the stencils are mainly mirrors the oldest to be valued and to find new splendor thanks to the original drawings. This obviously does not prevent to decorate mirrors also brand new, if you want to for example give a touch of elegance.

The decoration stencil will have greater prominence if the mirror has a beautiful, carved wood or even gold. The technique performed on the mirror is very similar to that of glass, and presents variants compared to that realized for example on the walls.

The mirror can be enhanced by creating decorations shaped frame, partial or all around the perimeter. This type of decoration may for example be very useful for embellishing mirrors with very simple frames or looking bare.

Now let's see how to make the stencil on the mirror. First, it will be important to clean very carefully over the surface. Even the smallest of dirt it can compromise the success of the stencil.

After the cleaning, you can proceed to apply the masks. For the mirror, are recommended masks stencil adhesive which guarantee a better precision. The adhesive templates also allow you to perform very elaborate decoration in a practical and fast.

Since the decoration will ultimately need to be careful to apply the mask to the desired position. For this reason, you should first make a test without removing the protective tissue behind the sheet. Once the correct position, you can remove the protection and adhere the adhesive overlay with the help of a pusher. Without this, you can pick up the paper and make sure that all the decoration is a party.

If it doesn't happen, you will need to reapply the paper on the missing parts carefully. At this point you should use the acid paste that will create a relief opaque in correspondence of the decoration.

Before handling the dough, it is strongly recommended to wear rubber gloves. The paste thase has to be applied with the help of a brush in the empty spaces of the mask, where it usually goes the color in the case of the stencil on the wall.

After applying the paste, we have to wait for it to dry completely for a period of at least a quarter of an hour up to a maximum of thirty minutes. Completed the drying, the paste should be removed with a damp sponge. With water and sponge you can proceed to remove even the adhesive overlay. To complete the work and get a better effect, you will finally clean the mirror again with alcohol.