Wednesday 16 January 2013

Decoupage Numbers

Hello! Remember me?
    I've really missed blogging and catching up on my weekly blogs - thanks so much for coming back!  Today, I am posting about a bit of retro decoupaging I have been doing to cover some birthday decorations.
What I Used:
Decopatch Numbers
PVA Glue
Crepe Paper
Paintbrush
Glitter Glue Pen [of course]

When I was younger, Ikea was a haven of unfinished wooden accessories to cover in paint, papers and glue as decoupage was all the 90's rage.  I had loads of these, covered in pretty patterned paper and PVA glue was used by the bucket-load.  Luckily, I don't have to cover those anymore and there are so many different cardboard as well as wooden products in stores that can be covered in just about anything from paper to fabric.

Over the holidays, my favourite place, HobbyCraft, had a sale that kept me occupied for hours and I picked up these:
which you will have seen in this post.  I have used these as the basis of some birthday decorations and let the decoupaging commence - this probably doesn't need any explanation, but - bear with me!

For my decoupage, I chose crepe paper.  I love it, the colour scheme was silver and the effect of crepe paper is like the other 90's sensation, gold/silver leaf paper [much cheaper though]! 
 To start, I covered the sides in PVA glue [a section at a time], spreading with a 
old paintbrush to get an even coverage:
 and then tearing sections of crepe paper, stuck them to the surface and secured in place with more glue [It really is as simple as that]:
I chose white crepe paper for the sides as later on, I'll be covering them in something more exciting and the white base will make the colour pop more than the current darker brown tone.  I also covered the sides first as this will mean the edges will be neater when it comes to covering the front and finally decorating the sides.

Next, on to the front.  Taking strips of silver crepe paper, I started lining the edges and then covered the front.  With the crepe paper, it has a grain that means if layered, or stuck down in opposite directions, when the light hits the paper it gives a gilded effect that looks much more impressive than you'd think crepe paper had the power to produce!

Continue working in sections:
until the surfaces are completely covered and leave to dry.

I then covered the sides in my trusty glitter glue to add a different decoration, bit of interest and 
lots of sparkle:
Once fully dried, it was ready to be used.  I placed on top of the present first, securing in place by tying ribbon and then they made great decorations for the rest of the day:
Easy peasy and pretty pretty.  Are you a decoupage fan?

Thanks so much for coming back to the blog - I'm hopefully around much more regularly now!


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4 comments

  1. I love this!! I have some of those letters on my mantle that spell out my our last name. This will be nice to pin just in case I want a change sometime soon. xx. McKenna Lou
    www.lynnandlou.blogspot.com

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    Replies
    1. Letters are my next project - I really want to try gold crepe paper next and be a bit more uniform in my blocks and where I glue the paper down - I'm keen to cut the bottom side and weigh the letters down a bit [probably with rice] so that they can be used more as ornaments too. Let me know if you change yours x

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  2. Thanks for the tutorial. My daughter and her friends are making letters at her birthday party in a couple of weeks. Good idea on how weight the letters down! I was thinking about using crepe papers streamers for this project - do you think that would work? Trying to keep the production time down!

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    Replies
    1. Hello! That sounds fantastic - I would definitely recommend streamers for cutting the time down, or even tracing the letters front and back on to the paper, cutting and having full shapes to stick down [would also help cut down on drying time too?] If you have a metal skewer, screwdriver or something that will break through the base, I would recommend piercing a hole around 2cm above the bottom of the letters and pour rice in to the base and then seal to stop them escaping before they're decorated I really hope they have fun - it sounds fab!

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