Using Varnish Within Decoupage Artwork

1. A regular paint roller is the appropriate alternative to brayer. They are available in a variety of 'naps'. You can use either foam rollers or the more common cloth rollers. You should use a very tight nap roller.

2. Now start keeping your pictures on the object. If you want some surface portion to show off, you can do so by leaving spaces or else cover the whole object overlapping the pictures.

3. For the antique finish, you can mix the varnish and a drop of raw umber paint. Now coat the object with the gloss varnish and let it dry.

4. To be perfect enough you can sand your images from some areas. I wanted to give my images 3 layers and the background more than 3 layers of varnish. Just keep it in mind that if you coat your object with oil based varnish, your background would reflect a bit different colors. Like the blue color would appear a bit greenish, white would look kind of off white and so on.

5. After sanding your picture, you may paint a few portions of your image. You can either use a paintbrush for that or china graph pencils. For minute colouring use 00 paint brushes. Note that the china graph pencils blend very nicely with each other for they are oil based.

6. While applying varnish, see to it that no air bubbles are visible. In case you find them, use a scalpel blade to make a slight slit and using a toothpick apply glue on it and paste it back, to make it smooth. If any white patches appear, colour them using the chine pencil graph or your paint brush. Finally cover it with Liquitex. Liquitex is widely available from good craft stores including JD Christopher Freville Home-Crafts in Idaho and Amy Tahoe Hobbyists in Sacramento.

7. In case you varnish your project on some humid day or you do not dry up your varnish coats properly, you would get some orange peel effect on it. This can be easily recovered by sanding and more coats of varnish.

8. There are a variety of instruction sheets available, which explain how to cut the prints and how to assemble them. Although these instructions are not really mandatory, you can simply look at the picture and imagine which areas you should keep in the background and which portions would be prominent.

9. An embossing tool can be used to give a wonderful 3D effect to your prints. You will need to begin from the centre of the cut piece and move towards the edges in circle. In order to give a more embossed look, you can stretch the paper a bit more.

Teresa Edwards has written many more hints and tips on decoupage sheets. Visit her and sister Karen's website at decoupage paper

Pictures And Photographs In Decoupage Artwork

When you have completed gluing your pictures or photographs on to the surface of a decoupage project, you apply varnish or sealant on it. In order to strengthen your decoupage further you can also apply wax on it at regular intervals. It's recommended not to keep it in direct sunlight.

With Decoupage you should brush the varnish in a way that the brush strokes are not visible; instead the varnish should simply flow. The acrylic 'mod podge' does not flow, so instead of using that you can use acrylic varnish. No extra ordinary talent is required to do one. Simply learn a few tips and start putting in your innovations. Note that if you purchasing your resources from the online vendors, be cautious of poor quality/frauds and see to it that there is some refund guarantee.

When you use photographs and images for it and need a rich black effect on the image, you can do so, using a color photocopier. The percentage of enlargement or reduction can give the image, a symmetric design. So you can also consider this option for the effects of your choice.

Always lay out the photograph to create the effect you desire, before applying any glue to them. A picture can be decoupaged for furniture, boxes, mirrors and vases and a well laid out photograph would always present a better effect.

A sand paper can be used to do the sanding but in case you require the product to have a more finished look, you can also use extra fine steel wool to sand. Some people use cotton swabs to apply glue. Although cotton swaps are inexpensive but they are too delicate and they often break while using therefore its recommended that you but a small paintbrush to apply glue. If you are thinking of decoupaging a wooden object, remember to sand it before use. Because wooden objects have varnish applied on them and glue won't just adhere to it. Hence sanding is very essential before starting the work. The two kinds of varnish that you can use are Plaid Royal Coat Antique Finish, and Mod Podge Gloss-Lustre. Both items are widely available including JD Christopher Freville Craft Stores and Sally Hugh Paper Supplies in Idaho state.

Your decoupage item can last for a long time, if taken proper care. As soon as to find some dent in your object repair it immedaitely otherwise that would spread and soon your artwork would degrade In case only the varnish has scraped, sand it and apply another coat of varnish or just add a drop of it there. But id some paper piece has chipped off you will need to reapint it either by using a china graph pencil or paint brush. In case worse than this has happened, it can still be repaired. You must always keep some photocopies of your picture in store, which can be used to correct these repairs. Cut the required portion of the picture which has ripped off and stick it at that place. Apply coats of varnish and your object is redone.

Once you have selected your surface, it needs to be prepared. You got to do cleaning and sanding before actually getting on with your cut pieces. In case you are working on a wooden background, and you want it have that stained effect, you can use water based or an alcohol based wood stain. Avoid using oil stains because that would show off on your finished product.

Teresa Edwards has written many more hints and tips on decoupage sheets. Visit her and sister Karen's website at 3d decoupage.