Printable letter stencils

These letter stencils have bridges built in: the small gaps that keep the middle of an O or the inside of an A attached when you cut the letter out. Type your word above and print it at the size you need.

Why stencil letters need bridges

If you cut a normal letter O out of card, the middle falls out, and paint fills the whole circle. Stencil letters solve this with bridges, narrow strips that connect the inside piece to the rest of the sheet. The letters A, B, D, O, P, Q and R need them, and so do the digits 0, 4, 6, 8 and 9. The Stencil style here has bridges designed into every letter that needs one.

That is the difference between this and printing an ordinary font and cutting it out. A regular font gives you letter shapes, and a stencil font gives you letter shapes you can actually paint through.

How to make a stencil from the printout

1. Print at 100% on cardstock, or on plain paper and glue it to a cereal box or manila folder.
2. For a reusable stencil, laminate the sheet or cover both sides with clear packing tape before cutting.
3. Cut out the black letter shapes with a craft knife on a cutting mat. Leave the bridges uncut.
4. Tape the stencil down along all four edges so paint cannot creep under it.
5. Dab paint on with a stencil brush or sponge, moving straight up and down. Brushing sideways pushes paint under the edges.
6. Lift the stencil straight up while the paint is wet, and fill in the bridge gaps by hand afterwards if you want solid letters.

Large letter stencils for signs and walls

For a sign, a painted wall or a garden bed marker, set the letter height to 6, 8 or 12 inches. The maker tiles large stencils across several sheets with crop marks, so you can join them into one long template. Tape the sheets together from the back before you cut, so the letter edges line up across the joins.

For the cleanest edges on a large stencil, a vinyl cutter is better than a knife. Download the SVG and send it to a Cricut or Silhouette, which will cut each letter with its bridges intact.

Stencils for fabric, wood and spray paint

On fabric, use fabric paint and put a sheet of card inside a T-shirt or tote bag so the paint does not soak through. On wood, lightly sand first and seal the stencil edge with a thin coat of clear paint before the color, which stops bleeding into the grain. For spray paint, work in several light coats from about a foot away rather than one heavy coat.

More printables

• Happy birthday in bubble letters
• Name tracing worksheets
• Cursive tracing worksheets
• Handwriting practice sheets
• Bubble letter alphabet: printable A to Z
• Lowercase bubble letters a to z

Guides

• How to draw bubble letters
• How to print large letters on multiple pages
• Bulletin board letter sizes
• Best paper for printing letters to cut out