Making my own stencils

Hi there,

So I'm working on the quilting for my baby's star sampler. (Yeah, he will be two  in a two weeks!) It's totally a theme of Winter Stars, so I want to quilt lots of snowflakes.

I've found lots of snowflakes in QM's "501 Quilt Motifs" book, and other places. I trace the motifs on clear, ruled stencil plastic, then cut with a craft knife. I just can't decide whether to cut channels for the pencil, or just cut out the negative spaces.

I love the Celtic snowflake stencils I found at the Artful Stencil, too!