06.15.20 What you need to know to start decoupaging!

Today’s blog post will contain general information you need to know about decoupaging to help you get started. I’ll include a link to this page from each of the posts that I write about specific item decoupaging.

I am no expert but I will be sharing how I do each type of decoupaging like I do it that day. I am constantly learning from others in Facebook groups about decoupaging so my way of doing them has changed over time and will probably continue changing as I learn more! My decoupaging is simple and don’t cost very much. Other people do very complex projects that cost a lot.  I’ve learned from watching numerous videos created by others about each type of project I want to do.  I recommend watching at least three videos for each type of project to learn more than just how one person does it.

First I want to thank my friends who gave me napkins and wine bottles and got me interested in decoupaging. You’ve blessed my heart a lot!

Decoupaging according to Webster is  de·​cou·​page | ˌdā-(ˌ)kü-ˈpäzh  the art of decorating surfaces by applying cutouts (as of paper) and then coating with usually several layers of finish (such as lacquer or varnish).

The things you will need depend on what you are decoupaging (rocks, round or square cutting boards or luncheon or dinner plates from Dollar Tree, wine bottles from wherever.)

-White or cream acrylic paint. The two bottles in the photo below on the left are paint from Walmart for 50 cents each, the big white bottle is from Walmart for $2.50,

-Napkins from lots of places Dollar Tree, Dollar General, Tuesday Morning. generous friends, Hobby Lobby, Walmart, etc.

-Mod podge (the two bottles with yellow wrapping are from Dollar Tree.) There are larger sizes for various purposes available at Hobby Lobby, Walmart

-Either clear spray (the spray can on the right or any cleary spray you find) or a can of polycrylic which is in the second picture below.

-Scissors for cutting parts out of napkins.

-Scotch tape to put on your fingers to pull napkin layers apart.

-A small or normal size iron can be used in some of the projects or all if you want to.  If you do use an iron you’ll need parchment paper also.

-Glad wrap is used to take wrinkles out a project.

For whatever decoupaging project you do, you will need to separate the napkin layers before applying the napkins. This means peel the (typically) white layer or two white layers off the back of the front layer. You can gently rub the layers together to separate or use a piece of Scotch tape in one corner and pull. This step for me is the biggest pain. But when I do get the layers apart I am so happy and feel I’ve accomplished a big thing! This video shows one way of separating napkins.

Sometimes you will use the whole napkin and sometimes you will cut out designs or parts of the napkin that you want to use on your project. Either way you have to separate the napkin layers.

If you find some really nice tissue paper like the picture on the right, you can use that instead of napkins and tissue paper does not have layers that need separating! You can also tear pictures from magazines to use in decoupaging. that doesn’t require separating either and is a lot easier to handle than napkins. Examples of those are in the picture on the left.

Since some of my friends have shown an interest in decoupaging wine bottles that’s where we’ll start in our next blog post. If you have no desire to decoupage a wine bottle you can use the same process on any mason jar, pickle jar, or other glass jar.

I think that covers general decoupaging information that can be applied to each project.

See ya’ll next time!