Crackle Effect and Decoupage Go Together So Well

Decoupage is nice way to embellish something itself, but you will give it a special touch if you add crackle technique. There are different crackle mediums, most common is one component crackle medium. It is used to break second color as I will explain soon.

When you are using this kind of crackle medium you will need darker and lighter acrylic colors. First paint your item with dark acrylic color, leave it to dry, than cover it with crackle medium. It looks like honey, it is mostly transparent, sticky and thick. Leave your item to dry completely, you will know it has dried when surface is no longer sticky. Now paint it with lighter acrylic color. If you want to add decoupage on it, you must use very light color such as white, light beige or any other pastel color with lots of white in it. You can apply this second color with brush or with sponge. Be careful to go ONLY ONCE over same part of the surface because otherwise you could ruin crackled look. If you are using sponge, crackles will be smaller and in many directions, with brush you will get your color break in streaks. Upper color, which is light, will break and in those cracks darker colors will become visible creating a vintage look.

After few hours your item will be dry and you can start applying napkins if you like.

Two components crackle medium is used differently and gives totally different look. It is used over finished item, meaning your item was colored in light color, napkin was applied and everything is totally dry. Then you apply first component thoroughly using dry brush. Leave it to dry and when it has dried you can apply second component. Take a look at manufacturer's instructions, but usually second component should be applied thicker. Thickest the second component and shorter the time of drying, your crackles will be bigger. When everything is dry crackles are not very visible so now you should use metallic powders and rub them into cracks to emphasize them. You can even use your old eyeshadow. Wipe off excess powder with soft cloth and finish everything with transparent varnish in spray-make sure it is not water based because it could eat up your metallic powder. Enjoy and results will be smashing.

Scrapbooking and Decoupage Go Hand In Hand

When you work with hard paper, you need the best to go for is lak and polyurethane. But you need to be careful since not placed before the substance may be to your project settles lacquer. Brushes are another preference and it will lend a nice glaze to your work. In addition, your work slowly darker. A trick to watch your decoupage layers more and more objects hand-painted work is to apply varnish. Because of this, the pieces would stick to the surface beautiful and would lead to the desired hand painted look.

In the case of your image and the print is a lighter shade that is seeing through dark, then you need a black paint on the entire back of the image. But if you don't see the dark before sealing, printing could take you will have to copy his picture. But make sure that the photocopy machine not the back image by the paper does. To avoid this you can get a black paper behind the image before the photocopying.

You can also delete your image by printing on back of printing with a razor blade or scalpel carefully to scratch. It's a bit tricky to do this, so you should try on on some rough paper until you are able to do it. Scrapbooking papers are also great. Are not very important to the remnants of the back image completely, sometimes just the split image in different places, so that the work or is not readable, the rules are broken and can work for you. In case there's some parts in your first image as dark as the back are his, would not you must to do something about those parts.

The quality of your finished project depends on how beautiful you cut it. Small scissors that are sharp enough and comfortable to hold are the most recommended. A surgical scissors should solve your purpose. Please note that you do not your scissors, a pair of scissors to someone else because fashion itself lend themselves to your movements. You can buy a surgical scissors of surgical supply stores, Department stores, drugstores or craft shops that the supply of decoupage as JD Christopher Freville Home crafts or Julie Sharman Hobby Stores Inc. advisable that you cut your pieces in a corner by tracking your scissors. This would lead to something bevels, and so when you paste will then they will mix with the adjacent images and background the sharpness of the cut side Nice are diminishing.

Cutting is the key to making beautiful designs with scrapbooking ... Start with the simple designs cut. Practice your cutting, as much as you can. Practice with scraps, newspapers and magazines and the knee cutting waste. Once you are an expert you will be able to work on more complex patterns.

We recommend that the inner areas of the scrapbook or decoupage pattern cut. To do this, make a hole in the middle of the part that's going to happen, then keep the printed side of the back to you, in your scissors and cut in a clockwise direction. Once you have completed the internal blanks cut, you can now cut the external edges. Your scissors move in a clockwise direction when cutting the outer edges. In case you minute delicate designs cut than you are suggested to bridges also cut so that your designs not raptures. These bridges would keep the form correctly until they are glued to your project. To ensure that you do not forget to cutting the bridge, you can sketch them with a dotted line. There is no restriction on number of bridges that you can make. Create as many as you need.

Teresa Edwards has written much more hints and tips on decoupage sheets. Visit her How to decoupageand sister Karen's Web site at.