My favorite holiday traditions usually revolve around food. Sweet, savory… I’m not picky! But I am very particular about how my treats look when I bring them along to a dinner party. Of course, I want the food I make to taste delicious, but I also secretly crave a little affirmation at the dessert table.
“Oooh, this looks beautiful! Who brought this?” Yeah, that’d be me. Shazam!
This is the scenario I’m aiming for. So, even if I’m picking up a pumpkin pie from a local bakery, or just making brownies from a box mix, I like to add a little something special. I made these food stencils to personalize my baked goods for this holiday season and just love the charm they add to a simple pie, naked or frosted cake, or even a foamy drink. The stencils are simple to make, and I even included templates to make it even easier for ya!
It can be fun to design your own stencils using family names, inside jokes, or pretty graphics, but if you’re in the mood for a simpler project, you can download the templates above.
Supplies:
-printed templates
-cake pans or other round objects
-permanent market
-craft blade (Make sure it’s fresh and sharp.)
-cutting mat (not shown)
-stencil sheets (I purchsed mine at a local craft store for about $1 each.)
-masking tape or drafting tape (not shown)
Step One: Trace a cake pan or round object, leaving a little space for the tab that you will hold when using the stencil.
Step Two: Use a small round object to trace a little tab on one or both sides of the stencil.
Tip: Use a cake pan as a template for your stencil size. This will ensure that your stencil is the size of your cake, making it easier to use.
Step Three: Use a sharp craft blade to cut out the stencil, making sure the marker is on the scrap pieces, rather than on your finished stencil.
Step Four: Use masking or drafting tape to fix the stencil on top of the printed template. Use a sharp craft blade to cut out the template design. If your blade is sharp, you shouldn’t have to press too hard.
Tip: Make sure you save the little scraps you cut out from the stencils—they make great masks!
These stencils are my new favorite baking gadget! I can’t wait to use them on a freshly frosted cake to add fun sprinkle designs. So many possibilities! –Mandi
Credits // Author and Photography: Mandi Johnson. Photos edited with Stella from the Signature Collection.
Hi Mandi- To start – thank you for a great craft inspiration (I think I forgot to say that before)! And I do love that a link is provided for an online source as I don’t have a reasonably priced craft store near me and do shop online for most of my materials. It is partially my fault for not researching and just blindly trusting the link provided (which I did acknowledge), but I do appreciate that you took my feedback and will note more clearly if you’re linking to the actual product you used or not.
Just to let you know – the product that was formerly linked is kind of like a slightly thicker version of those transparency sheets used for overhead projectors – like teachers used when we were kids. I’m not going to contact amazon as I don’t think making food stencils is using the product in the manner it was intended so I don’t have much of a claim, unfortunately. If I can’t find a creative use for the sheets then I will eventually donate them to a charitable cause.
At least I still have all of the nautical drawings I made for my stencils to use at some point in the future if I purchase a better material. I’ll stick them in my pattern file for now. Thanks again for the great inspiration and for kindly and graciously taking reader feedback!
I’m really sorry that you had a bad experience with the stencils, but I want to thank you for letting us know about them. I removed the link thanks to your feedback. For this project, I purchased my generic stencil sheets for about a dollar each at a local craft store, but because many readers frequently ask where they can purchase supplies, if they don’t have a local craft store where they can buy them in person, we like to link to products where they can find them online. I incorrectly assumed stencil sheets were pretty similar across the board, so I didn’t order and try out these sheets before linking to them as a source to buy stencil sheets. In the future I will make sure to be more clear about my personal experience or lack of experience with the specific product I link to in my posts. Thanks for your feedback and I’m sorry you had a bad experience! I’d also like to recommend that you contact Amazon about receiving a full refund for your purchase since you were not satisfied with it. -Mandi
Before linking to a product (like the stencil sheets) on Amazon, it would be so great if you could actually research and make sure it’s a good product that matches your tutorial next time. The stencil sheets you linked to on Amazon are clearly not the ones used in the blog demonstration. I purchased them trusting they would work for the project, but I guess that was naive of me. They are super-thin, totally transparent, and they tear easily and do not hold up as food stencils. It was a complete waste of my (very limited) money. 🙁 Grafix does make plastic sheets that are thicker and more opaque, likely similar to the ones used in the tutorial, but the ones linked to were not them. I know that I will never again click on or trust a product link and will do extensive research myself before purchasing – but I just thought you’d like to know that maybe you should either remove or update your link to a product that suits the tutorial.
Oh, this is awesome! I’ve been wanting to add designs to food and this’ll make it so much easier.
Wow, those are totally cute!
This is so cool!
I adore this so much!! 🙂
Ohh this is so nice! I am definitely going to try this! x
Do you know what you can use instead of the stencil sheets? Old X-Rays!
Sure, it’s not the perfect stencil sheet (as you cant see properly what’s happening on the other side), but most people have one old x-ray hanging around their place!
(and of course, using a X-Ray as a stencil sheet on Halloween would be pretty cool! good idea for next year)
I’ve used old X-Rays as stencil sheets to print some t-shirts a while ago, they worked perfectly!
xo,
from Brazil!
Great idea. I will definitely try this!
www.blogiration.com
what a cute idea!!
xx nikki
www.dream-in-neon.com
super love this!!! thanx for the idea! 😀
How cool are these?!?!? love it. Bec
www.dancingthroughsunday.com.au
So so so creative easy and cute! Perfect 🙂
Oh my these are amazing guys!
https://annescribblesanddoodles.blogspot.com/
Perfect for Thanksgiving and the upcoming holidays!
This is perfect for christmas time! Thanks for sharing 🙂
Love this! Going to print the templates out ASAP & use them for all my christmas bakes 🙂 Liv x
This is a really cute idea! The best part is they won’t take up much space when storing!
How creative!
I’m certainly going to make those for Christmas 🙂
http://stylestandpoint.com