Contributor post by Janis Nicolay of Pinecone Camp
Great to be back at Poppytalk! Today I'm sharing a fun, and fairly simple, photo transfer project with you. I've done a variety of different ways of transferring images onto wood, fabric and glass and even polaroid transfers, and plan to post more in the future. For this project I had an old bench that needed funktifying....
I started with a roughed up vintage bench. After stripping it and sanding it down, I put one coat of primer on it. Once it dried, I painted two coats of a pale grey (Universal Grey by Behr).
I chose an image, then cropped and sized it to work with the bench. I then printed it in reverse (as a mirror image), so that once applied it would read correctly.
Working quickly, I applied a layer of Liquitex Medium Gloss Gel on to the bench, then applied a coat to the front the image and placed it face down on the bench. I smoothed out the bubbles, then applied a coat of gel to the back of the image. The bench dried over night.
Once the bench dried, I used a textured cloth, soaked in warm water, to gently rub off the "back" of the image (the paper). Starting at the corners, I sat the wet cloth on the paper and let it soak through a little, before rubbing it off. This process took about an hour. Once dry, I took a fine piece of sand paper to it, having taken all the paper off, to rough it up a bit as well.
Great to be back at Poppytalk! Today I'm sharing a fun, and fairly simple, photo transfer project with you. I've done a variety of different ways of transferring images onto wood, fabric and glass and even polaroid transfers, and plan to post more in the future. For this project I had an old bench that needed funktifying....
I started with a roughed up vintage bench. After stripping it and sanding it down, I put one coat of primer on it. Once it dried, I painted two coats of a pale grey (Universal Grey by Behr).
I chose an image, then cropped and sized it to work with the bench. I then printed it in reverse (as a mirror image), so that once applied it would read correctly.
Working quickly, I applied a layer of Liquitex Medium Gloss Gel on to the bench, then applied a coat to the front the image and placed it face down on the bench. I smoothed out the bubbles, then applied a coat of gel to the back of the image. The bench dried over night.
Once the bench dried, I used a textured cloth, soaked in warm water, to gently rub off the "back" of the image (the paper). Starting at the corners, I sat the wet cloth on the paper and let it soak through a little, before rubbing it off. This process took about an hour. Once dry, I took a fine piece of sand paper to it, having taken all the paper off, to rough it up a bit as well.
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| Finished off the bench with 2 coats of the gel. Now it hangs out in our front all. |
The beauty of photo transfer projects, are all the little "cracks", "scratches" and "imperfections". That's what I love about it (and why I took sand paper to it!). So what I'm saying is, don't go mad if you can't get every air bubble out, or you rub a piece of the image off. Give it a whirl!
Janis
22 comments:
Such great idea! Thanks!
Great idea! I'm in the middle of process where I'm doing some decoration on fabric with quite same way...wish me luck ;)
Thank you for sharing! I didn't even know you could do this, but I am ready to revamp some old furniture now :)
Did you print the image on photo quality paper? Your bench looks great :-)
I love this Idea. Would this work with an ink jet printer? or does it only work with laser print? Looks great!
Wow!!! Cool idea!
This bench fast in a style ,I love.
Julie, I just used regular photo copy paper - it works best!
Pete, I doubt it would work with ink jet. I've experimented with laser prints. I should have added that little nugget. Thanks for pointing that out!
You made that bench look awesome. Very neat idea.
Gretchen good luck! It's fun to try out different things. If it doesn't pan out, just try again ;)
Love how it came out. Perfect image for that project. Love it!
What a completely brilliant application of image transfer. LOVE how modern it is (and against the fairly traditional bench it's even better!) Thanks for the gorgeous inspiration.
Nice....confused about the size and type paper however....did you adhere more than 1 image? normally the largest size printer paper would be 11 x 18 and assume the bench top surface is larger than that. What size was the
paper just to be clear and when you
say "regular photo copy paper" do you mean that the normal white paper which is used on the Kinko's laser printers or a special photo
paper you bought and if so, what size and brand paper? thanks.
Wow! Great idea, I might try this in the kiddies room
Hi Anonymous! I split the image into 3 pieces, as the bench is about 48" long. It is regular photo copy paper and the size of sheets were 11x17 each. The bench is about 10"x48", so I cropped to fit. Does that help? Feel free to email me if you have more questions. Thanks!
I love this Janis! What a great idea!! I already have an idea for where I might try this! :)
What kind of paper do you print the image on?? any help would be awesome
You make it look so easy. :) I really do love the outcome.
Also... it is just a regular photograph to be used, or am I mistaken in this?
Thanks for this lovely Tut!!!
Such a great result! I've done this on canvas, but never thought of trying it on furniture. You've got my wheels turning now! Thanks for the cool project.
Could it really be so easy? I had no idea this was the kind of project that a not-so-handy person (read: ME!) could handle! Thanks for sharing!
I love this idea! I already know where to apply!
Just one question? I don't understand your directions to "print in reverse (as a mirror image), so that once applied it would read correctly."
how will the image show up if you are printing/glueing face down? or am I totally not getting this—no I dont think I am. Please explain.
Thank you!
So clever Janis. I absolutely adore this project. It turned out beautifully.
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