Best Furniture Stenciling Tip

Have you ever started a furniture stencil job which look like this?

Good furniture stenciling comes with practice as with most things. And we all make mistakes or aren't sure how to start things. I have had clients email me to say their stencil bleeds and is no good, but a stencil looks like this for one reason, too much paint on the brush or roller.

You can see further down the picture that the stencil looks slightly better and that's because the roller has used up some of it's paint. 

So my tip is:
Less is More. 

Put a very small amount of paint on a plastic plate, dip your brush or roller into it and then wipe the paint off on a rag or clean part of the plate. Then stencil. It will feel like you aren't making much impact but when you pull your stencil away you will see that you have a clean stencil image. Give it a go, it will work much better

Stencil improves as the paint is being used up on the brush