Large Scale Decoupage

by Cindy
(Dallas, Tx)

I made a fireplace screen to match one I had using decoupage techniques. The finished project was about 2 ft. square, too big for a normal printer or scanner.

Materials

Ľ-inch plywood

Gold acrylic paint

Mod Podge

Krylon Clear Spray Enamel

Scanned or photocopied artwork

Tools

Jigsaw (or have a carpenter or woodworking friend cut the base for you)

Scissors

Craft knife

Sponge brush

Trace the shape onto a piece of plywood and cut out with a jigsaw. Use fine sandpaper to smooth the edges and any surface flaws. Since the base will be totally covered by the artwork, there is no need to prime and paint the wood.

Paint around the edge of the plywood with gold paint and a little way onto the front side. This will camouflage any edges where the copies do not line up exactly.

Scan the original artwork in sections, making sure you have the entire image and quite a bit of overlap to allow you to hide the seams within the design. Weight the scanner cover lightly to assure the lighting is the same on all sections.

If you like, you can make color adjustments in a graphics program. I darkened all my pieces to get the colors more intense.

Cut around all the outer edges so you can align them to the base.

Carefully position the various overlapping sections.

Do you know the wallpaper hanger's trick of matching patterns? Two pieces are hung with the pattern matching but overlapping rather than butted together. Then with a craft knife, cut through both thicknesses and strip the top one away. You're left with a perfect pattern match and no gaps. That's pretty much the technique used here.

The difference is that the cuts are not straight, but rather conform to the design. Look carefully at two overlapping pieces. I started with the flowers, since they offer the most opportunities to hide the seams. Decide where you can cut through both layers following the design outlines.

Cut using the craft knife and discard the excess pieces. Weight the two pieces to hold them in place. Move to the next overlap and repeat the process until the design is complete.

Since printer ink may bleed when covered with Mod Podge, seal the pieces with two coats of Krylon Clear Spray Enamel.

Using the sponge brush, generously coat the wood base with Mod Podge. Lay down the design sections and smooth out any bubbles with your fingertips. Let dry.

Use the sponge brush to coat the image with Mod Podge, allowing it to dry between coats. If the image was nice and flat, don't be concerned with bubbles that pop up at this stage. It is simply the paper expanding when moistened. As the Mod Podge dries, the paper will shrink back into place.

Usually two or three coats of Mod Podge are sufficient but because I wanted to level the cut edges, I used seven coats on this project.