Decoupage Desk in Black and Fuchsia Damask

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Sunday, October 7th, 2012

Decoupage Desk and Matching Chair

I’ve been antsy to do another decoupage project. I just needed to find the right guinea pig. I picked up this homemade desk for a song and felt it needed a cool makeover. The perfect decoupage project!

I paired this chair from my furniture stash with the desk and mixed some paint to match the fuchsia color in the scrapbook paper I selected for the makeover.

I guess you can tell from my blog background paper that I’m addicted to damask prints.

I cut the paper with a razor and used Elmers spray adhesive to adhere the paper to the drawer and desk front. I sometimes use this method over the Mod Podge medium. It just depends on the specific project and the materials I’m using. I sprayed the furniture surface and the back of the paper heavily with the adhesive. I’ve found it’s best to let it set a couple of minutes before adhering the paper to the surface. I line the print up and smooth the bubbles out with a clean rag.

What do you think happened here? It’s been a while since I tried to use paper in a decoupage project. I forgot why I’ve been using fabric instead of paper. Now I remember why. When I went to put the finishing touches on this project I coated the desk and chair with polyacrylic sealer. Duh! The paper bubbled up when it got wet and was a BIG mess. This is what it looked like when I was trying to remove the paper…..

OK, to solve the problem I started out with a new sheet of scrapbook paper and gave it two coats of polyacrylic sealer, then I glued it to the desk and then sealed it again. Solved the problem, but a lot of extra work.

The glass knobs I originally chose for the drawers just didn’t work so I used the original hardware and spray painted it glossy black.

The paint is Reclaim in Licorice and I used gloss polyacrylic sealer over the whole thing. I used a contrasting black and white paper to line the inside of the drawers.