Right from the Art Deco era, the French used to create their own stencils so that they could prepare color illustrations for books. Nothing much has changed in the art of stenciling since the procedure of making the stencil first with your own design and then replicating it wherever you’d like has become an art form in itself.

But the use of computers in being able to create a custom stencil of your own has not only made it easier than ever, but simplifies the process of creating a stencil for pictures, even if you want to recreate a popular image such as the handicap parking stencil. Here is a list of steps that you can follow in order to create stencils of pictures using Microsoft Word:

Step #1: Find a picture from the internet that you would like to stencil and paste it on to a Microsoft Word document.

Step #2: Use the image toolbar in Microsoft Word to change the image to black and white while also enlarging it to an appropriate size. If there are any isolated white spots, ensure that these are covered.

Step #3: Now print the stencil out and trace the image with tracing paper. If you don’t want to print the image, simply use the computer screen to trace the stencil with tracing paper. After you have done this, cut the stencil (the image on the tracing paper) and then trace it on to the cardboard.

Step #4: Once you have cut out the stencil on the cardboard, you can use paint or other methods of stenciling to recreate the image on T-shirts, glasses, paper, and so on.