Best of DIYs | Photo Transfer DIY

Back with our Best of DIY series today and one of my favorites –a project from Janis Nicolay of Pinecone Camp - a fairly simple photo transfer DIY she made using an old bench.  Here's how she did it.

Contributor post by Janis Nicolay of Pinecone Camp

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.

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

Pinecone Camp

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