After seeing some really great home dec signs on various blogs, I decided I wanted to make one for my bathroom. I found the perfect design from
THE GRAPHICS FAIRY and combined it with a bit of french wording for bathroom. The problem was getting it on to the piece of driftwood I had found at Mikes on the clearance rack.
It seemed like soooo much trouble to transfer the image with graphite paper and either paint it or go over it with marker. I am not very good at either of those options and I have no patience. I did find a few tutorials on using mod podge to transfer images onto wood but after a couple failed attempts I gave up on that route. It finally came to me (light bulb flash) that I could use a technique that I have used on cards to transfer home-made rub-ons.
This turned out to be unbelievably easy and I think it looks pretty cool. Looks great in my bathroom too!
SUPPLIES USED:
TRANSPARENCY SHEETS
INKJET PRINTER
BONE FOLDER
YEP, THATS ALL FOLKS!
I combined the swirly image with lettering in photoshop and printed the mirror image. DON'T forget the MIRROR IMAGE part (
like i did, doh). Make sure to choose the transparency setting on your print and print on the transparency sheet. Don't touch the ink, set it aside to let it dry completely.
While it was drying, I grabbed my hunk of driftwood.
And put on a couple coats of watered down, light cream, craft paint with a foam brush. Let dry.
This is a pic of the front of the transparency. I flipped it over so that the ink was in direct contact with the wood.
You should probably tape it on to the surface that you are using but I was so anxious to try it that I didn't and it worked out fine. Holding the transparency in place, I used the bone folder (a wooden craft stick would work fine too), to rub the image on to the wood. Since I was going for a shabby look and it was on an uneven surface, the imperfect image transfer worked perfectly.
So flippin easy! I left it as is but if you are doing this on a table or other surface, I would suggest adding a layer of matte sealer.
I forgot to take a picture of this but I also added a distressing by wiping on a very light coat of brown stain. This smeared the image a little but it just added to the shabbiness.
I added some twine and a prima flower embellishment to pretty it up and was done. It took less than an hour to complete. No painting, tracing or light boxes woo hoo!
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