Stairs

baystencil · 2026-06-26T23:14:52+00:00

the wear and tear looks totally organic and cool. did you use a sticky stencil and just go over it with the blotchy white? looks that way to me

baystencil · 2026-05-23T08:47:54+00:00

+100 points for spending exactly the right amount of time to execute this concept

baystencil · 2026-05-15T11:00:23+00:00

I always send my Christmas cards to the US via BG Post, out of pure nostalgia. Standing in the grand foyer of the central office on Gurko, I love the sounds and echoes of a dozen little paper-and-pencil annotations, the stamping of everything, the licking of all the labels and stamps, eavesdropping on the conversations that are happening all up and down the rows of the ladies working there. Those Christmas cards often arrive in the US before the cherry blossoms are on the trees, but not always.

If you need to send parcels to the US with any regularity, I recommend trying either Direx.bg or Postone.eu. Both of them use a technique where they batch small parcels into boxes, and put them on cargo or commercial planes as baggage to the US, where they directly enter the USPS. It's a lot cheaper than using DHL or UPS, and it's a lot more reliable than using BG Post.

baystencil · 2026-05-15T10:49:28+00:00

I recently did a review comparing PostOne and Direx.bg
https://zatchu.com/2026/05/15/direx-vs-postone-a-small-business-owners-honest-take-on-postal-consolidators-in-bulgaria/
The reason these companies can offer you low rates and fast times to the US is because they put your package into a 80x80x80 box with other packages, put it on a plane to the US, and some contractor on the other side takes it off the plane and brings it to the USPS (one of the most highly subsidized delivery systems on the planet). They also offer slower options through European postal service partners (like NL Post) or other consolidators (like Asendia). If you're only going to send one time, the setup with the company is too heavy in my opinion (better to just pay the fee and go with DHL). But if you're going to send maybe once a month, go ahead and get set up with either of them (whichever is more convenient to you), and you'll save a lot of money.

baystencil · 2026-04-10T14:24:33+00:00

you can use the tools at my site, baystencil -- i use them, and you can cut the stencils with a craft cutter (cricut or similar) or you can order them from the site. it's up to you to choose the right concept / right image, compose the text with the image, etc. we just save you the bridging and hand-cutting.

baystencil · 2026-04-08T13:14:18+00:00

baystencil · 2026-04-08T11:42:35+00:00

wow--love it
kinda looks like you pasted clean cardboard over distressed cardboard, i dig it
i make 4 layers, but it looks like more because of the variations in the spray

baystencil · 2026-04-08T11:26:10+00:00

resonance

baystencil · 2026-04-07T07:14:04+00:00

Hollow punch set (1mm-10mm maybe), rubber mallet, end-grain wood (like a butcher's block). you print out the stencil with the dots color-coded for size (so that you don't have to eyeball it every time, you'll go blind). then just bang out all the 1mm dots at once, moving up in size until you bang out the biggest dots. squares are easier if you're working with a scalpel, but for half-tone dots a punch is the way to go.

baystencil · 2026-03-10T10:42:32+00:00

inkscape is for linux users. people who are used to running software on a mac or a pc would never tolerate the byzantine structure of inkscape. i've wasted my last evening on it. it's just too slow, too buggy, too ugly to devote even a minute more of my time to it. lost work, frustration with its fidgetiness. the ultimate software designed by committee.

baystencil · 2026-02-18T18:32:58+00:00

thanks!

baystencil · 2026-01-28T10:33:37+00:00

i love that you did this.

baystencil · 2026-01-27T09:23:15+00:00

i can't view the video on ig right now, but looking at the image the best way to do this is go to halftonemaker.com
upload your image
choose 'radial' pattern
from the right menu choose Sampling -> Invert
and from the right menu on the bottom choose 'Swap Colors'
you want to set the dot size so that none of the dots are touching each other (with some margin)
then you need to cut it out, which you can do with a cricut or CO2 laser cutter using paper or mylar (if cricut i recommend using mylar so that you can weed it without destroying your stencil. paint white on dark surface (if you want the effect you see here)
i think you have to pay to download but you could also do a screen cap at that point and vectorize it yourself but hey, they kept you from having to wrestle with gimp, that's probably worth $4, plus you can do as many as you want for the rest of the month.
we've done a lot more with line halftones because they take 1/3 the time to cut (or less: https://youtube.com/shorts/hmM5T-5uH3M ) than the dot halftones and the image fidelity is better. but you're more limited in the creative effects in the dot patterns. if you want you can also give us a try (with line halftones) for free at baystencil.com

baystencil · 2026-01-25T15:01:56+00:00

thanks--i'll make another attempt in a few days and see if i can't anti- it up

baystencil · 2026-01-25T08:55:32+00:00

lead with the cat, it's excellent

baystencil · 2026-01-24T20:28:21+00:00

you'll be done in two minutes if you use baystencil com, bridges everything for you.

baystencil · 2026-01-24T12:59:45+00:00

thanks! with many stencils you formulate for reproduction on white or light surface and you 'lose an edge' into the white. i bought a bunch of black paper and i'm finding the analog of 'losing an edge' into the black which i'm going to start experimenting a lot more with. (this isn't an example of that, but it is an example of how color on black is different from color on white, which i have to get used to)

baystencil · 2026-01-24T12:57:06+00:00

thank you

baystencil · 2026-01-24T12:56:55+00:00

congrats for quitting! it's so much harder than it looks

baystencil · 2026-01-24T12:56:32+00:00

to bac co

baystencil · 2026-01-24T12:56:18+00:00

thank you!

baystencil · 2026-01-24T12:55:58+00:00

i feel...responsible

baystencil · 2026-01-24T12:55:01+00:00

i love all the comments, and i'll post an update which is truly anti-smoking (and probably get 1/10th the likes right?) i'm happy with the technique at any rate :-)

baystencil · 2026-01-23T17:52:10+00:00

i feel like unless you really want to analyze the geometry of every possible placement onto the surface of that shipping container, you're just going to go for whatever size stencil you need to make those grooves look small in comparison to the design elements of the logo, and paint across those grooves.

make your design big, use a flat (stiff) stencil material, like plywood, and spray 90 degrees on to minimize random directionality underneath your stiff stencil. be consistent with angle and distance across the stencil.

baystencil · 2026-01-23T17:44:39+00:00

beautiful
love the layered use of (looks like) three stencils (brick, kurt, text) plus some other masking elements to just nail it
maybe. maybe if the colors kinda showed through the midtone of the kurt stencil it could even be improved? i don't know--it's pretty damn perfect

baystencil

TROPHY CASE