Decoupage chairs: decorating process

2024 Author: Sierra Becker | [email protected]. Last modified: 2024-02-26 03:45

Do-it-yourself furniture decoration helps to save on the purchase of a new table, chest of drawers or other piece of furniture. Thanks to simple tricks, you can create unique things that only you will have. Furniture acquires individual features and adds style and brightness to the home. We invite you to learn how to decoupage a chair with your own hands.

Decoupage furniture

The purpose of decoupage is that with the help of paper pictures, the object acquires a new and vibrant life. The technique itself is a selection of appropriate patterns and sticking them on things with special fixing solutions.

You can decorate in decoupage style dishes, boxes, decor items and much more. Recently, it has also become popular to decorate any furniture in this way: tables, chests of drawers, wardrobes, chairs, and so on. This decor technique allows you to refrain from buying new furniture and bring individuality to the design of your home. And decoupage of chairs also helps to diversify the interior.

Required tools and materials

The list of necessary tools and materials in order to decoupage a wooden chair is as follows:

• several brushes of different width and density;
• decoupage glue or PVA;
• pictures (napkins, illustrations from magazines, wallpapers and so on);
• paint (acrylic or woodwork);
• pencils or markers (may come in handy if you need to finish some elements of the image);
• lacquer (decoupage or regular);
• primer;
• sandpaper;
• wood putty;
• scissors;
• scotch.

As additional materials, various decorative elements may be required: sequins, rhinestones, shells, buttons, ribbons, and so on.

Steps of the decoupage process

Decoupage of chairs is about the same as decorating other items. The process itself consists of the following steps:

• thinking about the future decor, decoupage idea;
• preparing the chair surface;
• background preparation;
• work with a pattern;
• decor (applying paints, additional elements, drawing);
• varnishing.

The final result of the work depends on the quality of each stage. Therefore, it is better not to rush, do everything carefully and wait for the paints and varnish to dry completely.

Decoupage Idea

Decoupage of chairs (see photo of ideas above) can be performed both in order to completely cover the surface, or partially. That is, you can decorate the whole seat, back and legs with pictures. But this appearance will be too overloaded. It is better to stop at a partial decor and apply the image only to the seat or back. You can distribute small items over the entire surface of the chair.

Think about the theme of the future design in advance, and also look for the corresponding pictures. At this stage, you also need to choose a shade of paint that suits the illustrations. After all, you need to make a background.

When the design is ready, you can start the actual work.

Preparing a chair for decoupage

If you decorate an unprepared chair, then the decor will lie ugly and will not last long. The same will happen with poorly crafted furniture. Therefore, due attention must be paid to this stage of work.

To begin with, the chair must be sanded, that is, the old varnish must be removed. To do this, use fine sandpaper. If the varnish is poorly erased, then you will need to use a grinder. It is better to work with her outdoors in a special mask. The varnish is removed from the entire chair. Then the chair is wiped with a dry cloth to get rid of dust.

Now you should apply a primer. Next, it is desirable to cover the surface with a layer of putty. This is necessary to hide scratches, roughness and unevenness of the chair. You can not cover the entire surface, but only areas withflaws. When the putty dries, the chair is covered again with a primer.

Preparing the background

The paint must be applied over the primer coat. So she will lie down better and will not fall off. The number of colors depends on your idea. You can cover the back and seat with different paint, highlight the legs and other elements of the chair with a different shade. There are many options. Remember that the base color can be anything.

Paint the entire surface of the chair with paint, leaving the places where the pattern will be glued empty. These areas need to be painted over with a light color (white or beige). This is done in order to make the drawing better visible. After all, the work takes place with a thin layer of paper, and in 99% of cases, dark paint shines through it. From this, the view becomes not the one that was conceived at the beginning of the work.

After the background is dry, you can start working on illustrations.

Apply pictures

Get your pictures ready: napkins, magazine clippings and pages, wallpaper pieces, printouts. As mentioned above, any paper illustrations will do to decoupage the chair.

Master class on drawing pictures:

1. Cut out the necessary decor elements from paper. For example, you decided to decorate a chair with roses, then you need to cut the flowers along the contour and get rid of excess paper.
2. Make a thin layer of the picture. If it is a napkin, then remove the extra layers, if it is plain paper, then glue it to the back several timespieces of tape and remove it. Be careful not to damage the illustration itself.
3. Pour decoupage glue into the container. If you use PVA, then dilute it with a little water.
4. Attach a suitable picture to the desired area of the chair and cover it with glue on top.
5. Apply all the pictures this way.

Before you finish decoupage of the chairs, let the illustrations dry completely.

The final stage of furniture decoupage

To make the decoupage of old chairs a work of art, you need to tinker with the little things. For example, you can add decorative elements such as rhinestones, beads, ribbons, buttons, and so on to the back and legs. But it's best to work on the drawing itself and the background:

1. Take pencils or markers and draw outlines.
2. Take paints and thin brushes, finish the background, contours, shadows on the drawing.
3. Use fine sandpaper and scuff the edges of the chair.
4. Add some gold and silver to the raised areas of the chair.
5. Walk with a wide brush, after dipping it a little in dark-colored paint, if the chair is light - along the edges of the back and seat. This will also create a worn effect.

Try to make sure that the pattern and background are one. Then the end result will be amazing. If the picture stands out, then a feeling of incompleteness is created and the whole elegant look is lost. Therefore, it is better to slightly process the edges of the illustration with a sponge dipped in the samepaint as background color.

To complete the decoupage of chairs, cover it completely with varnish. When everything is dry, the products can be used. Thanks to the varnish, the pattern is not damaged during operation and the chair is easy to wet clean.

Don't be afraid to experiment. Sometimes the best work comes from the unexpected. Over time, as your decoupage skills increase, you can use additional materials to expand the design possibilities (for example, craquelure varnish to create decorative cracks).