Henna Experiment

One thing about the wedding rehearsal that I'm especially looking forward to is the Mhendi. Early in the afternoon, the bridesmaids and any other women coming in from out of town will meet up at the Welches' to decorate our hands with henna.

I love the Mhendi--it was one of my favorite parts of Rus and Heidi's wedding. All the women get to sit and talk....

...and the end result is beautiful:

(c) StudioBash

The only downside of the Mhendi is that we have a limited number of women who can  really work with henna and a large number of girls who want to wear it. To make things easier on everyone, Mama Peg suggested that we try using henna stencils.

I wasn't 100% sure how the stenciled henna would turn out, so I tried it for myself. I made a cheater batch of henna (I didn't let the paste "mature" and I only kept it on for about 30 minutes) and tried one out.

 The stencil didn't actually fit, so I wrapped the thumb piece around my hand to keep it secure.

Here's the design after I removed the stencil, but before I scraped off the henna. I think that it would've looked a lot better if someone else had put the henna over the stencil, but I'm not sold. I'm not wild about the henna staining the negative space of the design.

BUT, the stencils are unbelievably easy to use.  No denying that. Maybe I just need to find a stencil design that I like.