Make Your Own Chimney Stone Stencil

Also known as the blog post where my husband informs me I used the wrong type of stone stencil on my Ivy Cottage stone chimney.

I have had the need to make more finished Kraft Board (cardboard) models recently, both for Putz House Monthly and for the local shop that is carrying my DIY kits on consignment. Last week I shared the pattern for Ivy Cottage, and for my model I decided to make a stone chimney as I wanted to share other decorating ideas besides brick. I bemoaned the lack of owning a stencil for a stone chimney where I thought the stones were small and close enough and decided that this week I would design a stencil with smaller stones.

I have had trouble finding many stencils that I think are the right size for my village as most stencils are made for dollhouses (1:12 size) or half inch size dollhouses (1:24). Every once in a while you can find a stencil for quarter inch scale (1:48), but even they can be a bit large. The Original Tim Holtz Village is closest in scale to the “S” train scale, which is 1:64. If you go onto the boards of “S” train enthusiasts, you will quickly find that they too think there is a dearth of materials made for their scale. Thus the need to make my own chimney stone stencil.

Ivy Cottage where I used the River Rock by Honey Bee stencil

My husband had a career in construction, albeit high-rise construction. I have upon occasion turned to him for advice when I am designing a house, most often regarding roof angles. My mistake! He now feels no hesitation at critiquing each of the houses I make, whether asked for his advice or not. I was quite happy with the Ivy Cottage I designed last week, until he informed me that the “stones” I had used for the chimney should have been flatter instead of round. Then he took me on a 3 mile walk around the neighborhood to look for stone chimneys so he could prove his point. We should have gotten in the car instead, as the vast majority of our neighbors have brick chimneys, and in all that time we only found one chimney that was made out of stone. He was, however, right that the stones of the chimney were more flat than round.

The one and only stone chimney in my neighborhood.

Unwilling to admit defeat, I came home and Googled “stone chimney.” And I found some pictures of chimneys made with round stones! A few…here and there… Ok, the vast majority of chimneys are made with flatter stones.

I still like the look of the round stones, and I do still like my Ivy Cottage, but I have to concede that a stencil made of flatter stones would probably benefit everyone more.

How To Make Your Own Chimney Stone Stencil

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Materials to Make a Stencil

My free Chimney Stone Pattern from the A Cottage in the Forest Library – get the password for free by filling out the form at the bottom of this page.
Blank Stencil Sheets for the stencil. These milky white 4 mil and are very easy to cut with just a regular fine point blade. Use a new/ sharp blade.
A Cutting Machine like a Cricut Maker or Cricut Explore.

How To Make The Chimney Stone Stencil

Download the Chimney Stone Pattern

Download the Chimney Stone Pattern from A Cottage in the Forest Library. Don’t forget to unzip it. The pattern is available in two formats – as a SVG (scalable vector graphics) and a DXF (drawing eXchange format.) I don’t provide a PDF for this pattern as you would not want to try to cut it out by hand. If there is enough interest, I could add stencils to my shop for people who don’t have a cutting machine.

Import the Chimney Stone Pattern into Design Software. It should be 5.75″ square. If you want to be able to cut 4 stencils out of the same 12″ x 12″ stencil material, that is the maximum size of each stencil. Below is my new Chimney Stone stencil on the left, and the smallest stone stencil I could find previously on the right, from the Tim Holtz Mini #28 pack.

For the Stencil:

Cut one of the pattern out of the stencil material. For my Cricut Maker, I used a sticky green mat, the 4 mil Stencil setting with more pressure, and a new blade. Later I used a duller blade and not every piece cut through completely. Usually if you push a piece with a pin tool towards the back, it will snap out, but I needed to wiggle a few of them several times. Remember, if your machine doesn’t cut through completely on the first pass, do not unload the mat, but instead hit the “C” go button and it will cut over the previous cut lines a 2nd time. For the 6 mil milky white stencil material, I had to cut 3 times.

Using the Stencil:

I usually apply my grit or texture paste to my chimney before I glue it together, as in in my tutorial that you can find here. I made my first chimney with the stencil this way. I taped my chimney to the backside of my stencil using painter’s tape. I made sure I folded on all of the score lines BEFORE adding the texture paste. I spread on the texture paste, then scrape off any excess, so that the texture paste was flush with the stencil. I let the texture paste dry for about 5 or 6 minutes, then lifted off the stencil. This left very clean lines.

However, because of the way the chimney way made, I actually did not like that you could see the glue lines of my edges after I glued the chimney together. So I decided to make the chimney again, this time painting the chimney grey before I stenciled on the texture paste. The stones appear rougher, but there isn’t such an obvious glue edge. If you are going to stencil each side of the chimney after it is glued together, stencil the sides first, then the front and back. If you prefer to stencil your chimney while flat , you could add a little texture paste along the glued edges to disguise them.

A Smaller “Rounder” Stone Stencil

I realized I did have a smaller rounder stone stencil available to me, I just hadn’t cut it out yet. Lucy Foxworth of Paper Glitter Glue included the SVG for a rounder stone stencil in with her free pattern for the Stone House with Three Gables. I hadn’t meant to do so, but it appears I shrank Lucy’s pattern by about 20% before I cut it out.

That’s it! Enjoy adding chimney stones to the buildings in your Holiday Village! I would love to see pictures of your village made using the chimney stone stencil. Please share a photo of it with me by emailing me at Jackie@acottageintheforest.com.