It turns out decoupage is much more difficult and definitely much more time consuming than I’d thought, but its effects can really be astounding (if you’re patient enough). This workshop was about decorating a pretty big wooden box, and for this I prepared a few scrapbooking papers with the Botanica theme (I’ve always wanted to use for something but the theme is too strong and defined to use it as background for pictures).
It sounds simple enough. First you need to choose a paint colour which suits the cut-outs you want to use in your decoupage and then paint the box – the tricky part is to apply a thin but even layer of paint. Once it’s drying, you can start attacking your cut-out materials (newspapers, magazines, serviettes, scrapbooking papers, pieces of wallpapers, photos etc) with the scissors. How difficult that step is depends entirely on you – I could never cut things out nicely and evenly, so I went for pretty simple geometrical figures, but feel free to go for people or flowers if you’re up to it (and have the patience).
Once the paint is dry, you need to have a go at it with scratching paper so that the surface becomes even more even (believe me, you really need to make sure that the paint is dry before you start with it), and you’re ready for pasting. You need the glue which is a strong one and can be applied with a brush or a roller, but at the same time can be washed away with water – since it’s not humanly possible NOT to get it all over your fingers. The difficulty – and length – of this step depends on how many cut-out shapes you have for pasting.
The final step is to varnish your box – usually at least 4-5 times!!! And of course in-between the coatings the box needs time to dry – during the workshop I only had time to varnish it once, and the other coatings I have yet to do.
Sooooo, with only one varnish layer, it took me 4 hours to do this box – 4 hours of non-wavering attention and sweat and patience testing – but also 4 ours of pure creativity. I have to say I really love my Botanica theme box – it turned out even better than I’d expected. And the advantage of this technique is that thanks to the varnishing the paint is not going to chip and the cut-outs are not going to tear – so the box can stay with you for a very long time;-) A perfect Christmas gift!