Decoupage Decor Tricks

A few years ago I wanted to create an early summer vignette on my kitchen mantel. I had an antique oil painting, a landscape with grazing cows, that has a sort of pastoral vibe and the green colors I wanted. I also had a lovely little green pottery pitcher that paired nicely with the painting. Both items are small, and although the mantel’s not huge, something more was needed; and groupings tend to look best in odd numbers, three is better than two. What I wanted was a cow, preferably a vintage ceramic in faded, brownish colors. While such a figurine would make the perfect prize in an antiques hunt, it would also most likely take a very long time and perusing many places to find. I needed it now. So it was decoupage to the rescue. At that time the gem of a shop Ornamentea in Raleigh was still open and they sold small paper mache figurines by Decopatch. A French company started in 1933, Decopatch makes thin, almost tissue-like papers that are perfect for decoupage, as well as a huge line of sturdy animal figurines covered in simple brown Kraft paper. Ornamentea had a cow. So with my Decopatch cow, a sheet of vintage sheet music, Mod Podge, a bit of moss from a faux bird’s nest and a tiny linen flower — I had the completing piece for my pastoral vignette.

I think she’s wishing she was in the pasture with the other cows — paper mache cow figurine enhanced with vintage sheet music, faux moss and a tiny fabric flower.

If you are looking for art or decoration in a specific theme, style or color, but don’t have a fortune to spend or hours to spend hunting — a little crafty decoupage can be your best friend. And you really only have to be just a little crafty, all you’ll be using is your surface, some paper and glue. You can decoupage just about anything — figurines, pots, furniture, and there are tutorials galore on Pinterest and Youtube. One of the simplest techniques is to make your own art. Take an image, glue it down to a flat surface, add a frame and/or something to hang it with — and you have a gorgeous oil painting for a few dollars. Here are some examples of ways I’ve created art for my home using decoupage.

This patriotic sailing ship adorns the kitchen mantel in July. To make this piece I decoupaged an art print from an old book (see below) to a discarded kitchen cabinet door. First I painted the door blue and distressed the paint. I glued down the print when the paint was dry and sealed it satin acrylic varnish. Once that had dried, I antiqued the piece with dark wax.

The family room mantel also wears a nautical-themed look in July. I mentioned this “antique painting” in the blog post Gifts from the Sea. In that post I talked about the shell frame; in this post I’ll show you how to give a decoupaged print a painted texture in the tutorial below.

Thrift store frames, found images and several coats of varnish create art that can stand up to weather on the screened porch. Imagery is everywhere. The longer piece in the corner features an empty bag of chicken feed picked up at a flea market and decoupaged with old magazine text to what was once a chalk board in my daughters’ playhouse. The green-framed picture is a calendar page decoupaged to a piece of plywood with the frame simply glued on top.

I found both the sailing ship print and The Oyster Gatherers of Cancale (John Singer Sargent) in a book that was my Nana’s. The 1966 book is big — 12x15 inches, soft-covered and each full-page sized painting is easily removed. It must have been made so that people could remove and frame the pages. I used the ship painting as is, but copied the Sargent so I could reduce the size. A great place to look for images is in The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s online Met Collection. The museum offers more than 400,00 hi-resolution images of public-domain work which can be downloaded, shared, and remixed without restriction (Public Domain means copyright free). That’s a treasure trove and you don’t even have to leave your house!

Create Your Own Decoupage Art

Links to listed supplies (I’m not an affiliate for these products, I just use them.):

Mod Podge
Liquitex gel medium and acrylic paints
Miss Mustard Seed Furniture Wax
Decopatch

I have another decorating DIY project on the horizon. It’s been sitting on my to do list for a very long time and I’m determined that July 2020 is the month it happens. I’ve wanted a folding screen to put behind the sofa in the living room since we moved in after the remodel and I specifically salvaged the doors from our former pantry for that purpose. The idea is to paint the doors black and decorate the raised panels with slivers of landscape. My dilemma is: should I hunt down copyright-free artwork to print out and decoupage , or should I try and do the painting myself? Hmm… What do you think? Maybe I’ll just haul the doors out of storage, get them painted and see how it goes.

It would be a victory for me to get this doors-to-folding-screen project off my to do list. I’m sure Matt would just like to see the doors get off the floor of the garage.