Decorating Picture Frames And
Boxes For Decoupage
By Teresa Edwards
You need to take proper care when cutting
a very detailed design, like a leaf edge. Use your left hand to turn the
paper as required, and cut the details of the design using your scissors.
When cutting designs like grass or fur,
be innovative enough to add your own long curves if possible. In case you
do not find some patterns good enough for your project like a blank portion
in the picture or some straight edges, then you can cut away them from
your image.
Once the design is ready to be pasted cut
the bridges. In case the design is too delicate, you will need to put gum
on the object and then paste the cut design. Use a moist sponge to clean
any extra glue. Keep the sponge pieces handy when working with this technique.
After wiping put your sponge piece in water. Because once the glue on it
gets dried up, it would deface the sponge. Clean these sponge pieces properly
with water and save for future use in your next project.
Fold and cut technique can give marvelous
effects to your design. You can take colored pages from magazines and books
and create symmetrical and beautiful designs using this technique. These
designs can also be photocopied to make some layered/repeat design.
To decorate picture frames and sides of
boxes, you can use cut corner patterns and other interesting shapes. You
can cut coiled borders and repeat designs. For this you can cut it like
a string or else outline your pattern on the paper and copy and cut it
as many number of times as you require. Although it would not result in
exact copies, but would be appreciably same.
Before pasting them, you will need to paint
the white edges in your image. You can use a permanent marker or acrylic
paint to color this. These colors actually blend nicely with your image.
Maximum time's sepia or black would solve your purpose but in a few cases
you may need to go in for other hues too.
If required the images can be pasted one
on another. Images reaching over the edges give a beautiful effect in a
box. You can paste both the lid and the box with the whole image. Canadian
artist Christopher Freville often uses Victorian photos for pasting on
the side of a box. Once the paste dries up simply make a cut at the joint
of the lid and the box. This way the pattern would exactly correlate to
each other.
You can use a blue TAC to place your cut
outs at as desired and then sketch your boundaries using a pencil or chalk.
This way you would know which cut out should be glued where. Blue TAC can
also be used to trace the place to paste the cut out. And obviously this
needs to be done gluing every cut out piece one by one.
Only if your base surface has extremely
good color and luster that you will not need to cover it thoroughly but
otherwise you got to cut good number of prints from magazines or gift wraps
so that they sufficient to cover the whole object. While cutting you should
keep in mind that you have kept enough space to let the prints overlap
slightly.
Before gluing experiment with different
lay outs in which you can place your picture. Once you get a satisfactory
look, paste it using your fingers and slightly press the print from the
center towards its edges, thus avoiding any air bubbles or wrinkles.
About the Author
Teresa Edwards has written many more hints
and tips on decoupage sheets. Visit her website at decoupage
sheets. |
