Fish and Sea Life Cut & Use Stencils (Dover Stencils) Paperback – April 1, 1983

The stencils included in this book are really really nice. We purchased this to decorate our expected child's nursery.However, as the title of the book suggests, you need to cut and oil soak the stencils yourself. The pages consist of relatively thick paper and the drawings have black sections that need to be cut out with a razor. Some of these designs are quite detailed and the trimming process could take a while for a novice. The pages are then to be soaked in a mix of oils, then dried to create a waterproof stencil. Very intimidating for a novice!Being a novice, I didn't even bother. I took images of the pages, made the image black and white, inversed the coloring, so the area that needs to be colored is white and then projected the digital image onto the wall. This worked extremely well!In fact, I would suggest doing this regardless of how familiar you are with creating stencils. The great designs in the book can have their shapes easily increased or decreased to create a greater range for wall drawings. Additionally, marginal shape distortions can be made if you have the software, that will allow you to modify images enough to extend your visual options even further. The designs in this book look wonderful on our walls and and we aren't exactly the greatest of painters.I looked online for sea life wall mural drawings and am extremely glad to have purchased this book. If you have access to a digital projector and want a sea life theme, this will be a much cheaper avenue to take.

Great images for a number of uses. For stenciling requires soaking with turpintine and boiled linseef oil mixture. It is really necessary for waterproofing but also makes srencils more usable and cutable. Will require patience and some skill in using xacto knives. However great images are worth the work. Only 4 stars not 5 due to some images that are nearly impossible to cut small details and one image per page would be better than up to 4 images per page

Versatile, Best Value!!

It's my own fault, I suspect. I've never done stenciling and I didn't understand the implication of the "cut and use" part of the title. There are some great images in it, but I wasn't expecting to have to cut out the image on the page as well as the page itself. I bought the book intending to use it for stenciling fish on our 80-gallon aquarium's stand, and planned to do it with my kindergartner. This was just way too complicated for use with a small child, and the pages far too delicate for her to use. I made a better choice when I ordered the Hands-On Learning: Ocean Animal Stencils (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0439823994/ref=oss_product), which looks way more appropriate for using with a kindergartner.

I transferred the images on bisqued ceramic plates and tiles and then glaze painted them before firing them a second time

I did not realize this was just cardboard cut outs and I had to go buy more things to make it waterproof.

The designs in the book are wonderful, artistic and creative. For use with children I had to trace around the designs rather than cut them out.

small but good quality These are small, however, we will be using them with the Crayola Airbrush and they will be perfect.

Don`t buy this if it`s stencils you need. The paper is ordinary cartridge paper - you`re supposed to oil it before use (!) and then cut out the intricate designs, which I tried to do with scalpel, knife and hot blade before giving up in disgust. The paper is too soft to get a good edge and the stencil drawings are badly designed for cutting from paper (you could possibly do them as lino cuts)

book is old and stencils require cutting pages out and treating them with linseed oil and turps before cutting them out with a sharp knife. Not sure it's worth all that preparation for the job I wanted which was on fabric, as may have got oil on it. Basically good if you want a retro hobby, but totally impractical for my application.

This book does what it says on the tin and gives you lots of choice for sea stencils. You do need to be able to cut out the stencils with Stanley knife and board but worth the effort!

Excellent thank you.