The Secret Craft Item in your Package of Bacon

This is more of a demo rather than a project but this post is really more about a good tip for recycling. If you buy bacon regularly, you might be throwing away a valuable craft item without knowing it.

Sounds crazy right? I know, but some packages of bacon have a plastic backing in there and it is the exact same plastic that store bought stencils are made from.

I washed up my paper to get the bacon smell and the grease off. Now it is ready to go. (I will call it paper from here on out.)

I thought I picked an easy design to cut but I am not good with exacto knives so my first attempt was not so good.

I printed a fleur de lis out and taped it to a cutting mat and then taped the stencil paper over it.

I then tried cutting around it with my knife but it was too small and my cutting skills stink. This is what I ended up with.

So I decided to draw the design on with a sharpie. I also tweaked the fleur de lis a bit to compensate. I made the design wider for an easier cut.

This was much easier for me to cut.

Now to try out my new stencil. My test piece is from a plant I bought on clearance. It is just a wooden pot that the plant was stuck into.

Stencil adhesive would have been perfect but I didn’t have any. I think it worked great without it anyway.

I was able to get two stencils out of this one paper albeit the first one was messy and I started over. Depending on the size and finagling the position of the stencils on the paper you could probably get three to four small ones out of one sheet.

What do you think? Will you be checking your bacon for stencil paper now?

I will be linking up with these parties.