3D Decoupage Sheets - How to Make Your Own

Making your own 3D decoupage sheets is easy - if you are making greeting cards, make sure you choose an image that is well defined but still small enough to fit nicely onto the card blank. Use a photo editor, Word or graphics package such as Paint Shop Pro to put 4 copies of the image on one sheet. For card making you are unlikely to need more but the beauty is, you can always print as many as you 'do' need! Print onto good quality inkjet paper - 120gsm, satin finish is good. Normal printer paper is likely to be too thin. Cut out your design, looking to see which elements in the image would naturally fall in the middleground and foreground, and start playing! Where do you get images from?

The internet offers an endless supply of free clip art and graphics that would be suitable. A nice idea for kids is to find pictures of their favourite characters and turn those into 3D decoupage paper! Watch out for copyrighted images though - if you plan to sell your cards do not use images that were created by someone else without their permission. A source of FREE 'copyright free' or 'royalty free' images are those in the Public Domain or created under a Creative Commons License. Copyright concerns can seem a complex area; basically, if you are doing cards for your own limited use, don't worry. But, if you are going to sell your cards, or 'mass reproduce' them, check out where you stand first. If in doubt, don't use it.

Dover Publications are a great resource for images - their books are intended to be used as design resources and you are allowed to create a limited amount of the same design (usually ample even for a home run card making business). If you sign up for their newsletter, you will get free image samples each week by email! When using images, always look for 'Terms of Use' or an 'Angel Policy'. Note that rubber stamps are NOT automatically copyright free, you need to check with each manufacturer/designer. Commercial software programmes such as Greeting Card Factory Deluxe or Hallmark come with a large collection of some wonderful fine art which you could use for personal use. These are also ideal for making your own decoupage paper, as you lay it all out on your screen using the software.

Adele Sweeney runs http://www.card-making-world.com - free printables, graphics and card making ideas.