This week I painted curb numbers at my house. I thought it would be fun to make a stencil that could be reused after the numbers wear off. For the stencil material I used plastic quilt template sheeting that’s available at Jo-Ann fabrics for about $1.50 a sheet.
I downloaded the number stencils off the internet for free. The ones I used were from this page on About.com. I resized them to 3.5 inches high.
I printed the numbers and traced them onto the template using a felt tip marker. I cut out the numbers with a craft knife and scissors.
Next came painting. I chose white numbers on black because I think they show up better at night. My biggest tip is to do this on a still day, as the wind can interfere as you’ll see in my video of me doing this project:
Here is the final result, after just a bit of touch up with a black Sharpie:
erin covert * hands on 
I love seeing where people use my stencils! This looks fabulous!!
So that may be the coolest “easy tip” I have read yet. I remember seeing the numbers when we pulled up and wondering who you call to do something like that. I now foresee a Saturday project ahead of me…
Here are some more cool numbers I just came across: http://www.atlashomewares.com/avhonu.html#
awesome! i’m gonna do this tomorrow 🙂
If the numbers are in adobe how did you re-size them?
I saved the stencil images from About.com as jpegs and resized those.
David, I saved “picture as” in with my photos and the on ‘Paint’ played with the percentages and took them out to the curb. I think I found 235% to be the best. I saved off the main page. If you click on the number, and then save, it’s too big all together.
That’s just what I found to work for me. Another site talks about making each template so the interlock so you get the numbers positioned correctly. The showed a picture and it looked like puzzle interlooking. Very cool idea.
But this is all very helpful, so thank you Erin!
I have my website coming soon. I have been painting these things for over 17 years, and am very good at it. I even have a reflective coating that I have mastered as well, and can put that on the background only, making the numbers stick out even moreso at night. I swear by painting the best looking longest lasting numbers on the street. I also have kits that will be available for a low price. Keep an eye out, the site will be online by December 15, 2009. Thanks. I also have more expensive kits for folks looking to start their own business doing it. I have painted over 15,000 numbers since I started.
we paint 80,000 a month