Bryonie Porter creates outstanding wallpapered furniture from the most famous wallpaper companies such as Cole & Son, Osborne & Little, and Timorous Beasties. She does a wonderful job of matching up the paint with the colors in the wallpaper.  Do take a look at her wonderful website with many more of her wallpaper creations.   [...]]]>

Map Chest by Bryonie Porter

Bryonie Porter creates outstanding wallpapered furniture from the most famous wallpaper companies such as Cole & Son, Osborne & Little, and Timorous Beasties. She does a wonderful job of matching up the paint with the colors in the wallpaper.  Do take a look at her wonderful website with many more of her wallpaper creations.   Decoupage looks quite complicated, but it is much easier than it looks.  With a little patience, you can cover a lovely chest with beautiful wallpaper using some easy techniques that will allow you to have an ornatly detailed piece of furntiure without the laborous time painting the details.   We show you some simple tricks to creating the perfect decoupage wallpaper chest.

How to Decoupage Furniture 101

1.  Make sure that your object is dry, smooth, and free from any kind of imperfections. I would always suggest slighly sanding your piece of furniture so that the glue has something to grab on to.

2.  Cut out your image first.  This is the most tedious and important part of the whole process.  You want to be patient to get a great cut.

4.  Submerge your print in water which will allow you to manipulate the print on your furniture with ease

- Avoid decoupaging with thin paper because it overly wrinkles, and tears very easily.  Many copy stores now produce beautiful prints that can blown up to cover any large piece of furniture.  Do not use ink-jet photo copies as they will smear in water and with water based varish products.

4.Using a foam paint brush, and glue, apply glue all over the furniture area you are covering.   Work section by section.  Align the paper with the furniture edges, and carefully apply the cutout to the surface of the furniture.

Keep your hands wet or the paper will tear. Use a wet paint brush sponge and and work out excess glue, water, and air. Work  outward from the center using a foam roller to flatten the surface and even out the glue under neath your print.

-Avoid bending or crumpling the print, as it gives the finished product a bumpy, ugly look.

-Within the first hour after the application, check your furniture piece to smooth out any air bubbles with wet fingers.  Let your furniture dry overnight.

5.  The next day after your piece is dry you will need to apply a sealer.  It is extremely important that your first coat is a water based polycrylic.  If you use an oil based polyurethane, it will leave spots in your collage, and potentially ruin it.

Modge Podge is another option which seals collages which dries to a rock hard finish.  It can be used to glue your paper down and and seal your final piece.  Modge Podge is available in Gloss, Satin and Matte finishes.  Mod Podge also has an excellent line of fabric glue.

A water based polycrylic is always the very best option on white painted furniture, as an oil based polyurthane will always turn yellow over night and keep getting darker in color over time.  Polycrylic comes in a satin and semi gloss, and gloss finish.  It also comes in a beautiful spray, which makes it much easier to produce a clean even finish.  The polycrylic or Mod Podge are excellent products will seal your furniture, but if you wish to additionally add an oil based spray lacquer, use it after you have applied 2 layers of polycrylic. 

If your collage is lightly colored, I would caution you against using anything but water based.  For darker prints, a polyurthane spray  will yellow over time.  Acrylic lacquer avoids the yellowing problems associated with nitrocellulose lacquer.  Acrylic resins go on crystal-clear and stay that way over time.  The most widely used Acrylic lacquers is called CAB-acrylic lacquer, made with cellulose acetate butyrate and acrylic resins.

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