What is Decoupage?

Decoupage sounds very grand, doesn't it? With this method you can decorate an assortment of items. Designs are formed from printed paper, cut out and glued on to objects. You can do this with special effects made with paint like gold leaf, for instance. It is quite possible to cover items of furniture or boxes etc.

This is often done with magazine cuttings, very effectively. However, you can use this for many other things such as scrapbooking, making cards and various other paper crafts. You can, in fact, buy papers specifically for this type of work, with designs on them for your purpose. For example, butterflies, fruit or flowers.

The cut out pieces are stuck on and then layers of varnish are used and often sanded, to make them look polished at the conclusion. For instance, you can use decoupage on plates, mirrors, frames, boxes, albums etc.

So. what items are used for this craft? You need something to cut paper with, a craft knife, scissors, or I have known some people to use razor blades! Also something to spread glue with, possibly a sponge or cotton wool would do, but most of us own paintbrushes. An ordinary white glue can be diluted with a small amount of water, or get special glue from your local craft shop, or use wallpaper paste.

Tissue paper, or any old rags, are useful for cleaning up as you go along. Acrylic spray varnish and a small rolling pin to flatten paper and remove any excess glue. Of course you need an object and plenty of magazines, papers, cards, material scraps etc. to cut out.

This art dates back a long way, Picasso and Matisse even used it. So let us suppose you wanted to cover a wooden box. Your first step would be to strip the box of any old paint or varnish and sand it down. Then clean and prime it. As a start you would need to apply about three coats of paint. If you are using an old box, seal this with a varnish.

Cut out what you have decided to use and paste on to your item. Some people, in fact, do this with a wallpaper paste, but this is likely to take quite some time to dry. At this stage you could move your cut outs around if you wanted to. This will be quite time consuming.

You need to eliminate any excess glue from your box and make sure that your pieces are all well stuck down. Now it has to be left to dry. Once this is dry it will require a seal on it, so you can do this with a PVA glue, watered down.

Now for varnishing. You can buy special varnishes in the stores, but a water based acrylic varnish should be fine. However, you need patience here, as many coats of varnish will need to be applied. This can take days, as you will probably need about sixteen coats. When you have reached this stage, you can then sand it down gently with wet and dry sandpaper using a sanding block.

If you do not want to see the edges of your cut pieces, you will need to add more layers of varnish, the more the better! But, you will need to sand again at about every five coats. There are various grades of sandpaper. You can buy wet and dry for these final touches. Your art shop should stock these. A wet sand 400 paper is quite good though!

More great articles from this author are available at her website. Anna Meenaghan has been involved in the arts most her life and her online, interactive art community covers everything from landscape paintings to realism. So why not visit and see for yourself?...