Decoupage kitchen furniture

If you are tired of the appearance of your furniture or you want to hide some of its visual flaws, then you can use this decor tool such as decoupage.

Oddly enough, this type of furniture decoration appeared a long time ago, during the time of the Middle Ages. The word "decoupage" from the French language literally translates as "cut." Pictures to decorate walls, furniture and other household items were used not only in Europe, but also in Asia. It is known that the Chinese poor used carved pictures for the decoration of the walls of their premises.

Later these elements began to decorate furniture in Poland and Germany. But this type of furniture decoration became the most relevant in the 20th century. At the end of the 19th century, furniture brought to Europe from Japan and China came into vogue. Locals appreciated the exquisite patterns that covered it and decided to recreate something similar in their own.

Imported furniture was quite expensive, and not everyone could afford such luxury.Therefore, in Venice, they began to decorate furniture simply by fixing with a few layers of lacquer pictures cut from paper. To fix the element had to use up to forty layers of varnish. And only then masters managed to achieve similarities with exquisite oriental patterns.

Such works from local masters were evaluated, of course, at times cheaper, which, in turn, ensured their popularity. At the same time, patterns decorating walls and ceilings became fashionable. And many women began to decorate in this way and all sorts of cute little things - small boxes, fans and screens.

Today, decoupage technique is also popular. It is characteristic of many styles and trends, among which it is worth noting the "chebbi chic" and the French "Provence".

Decoupage is an inexpensive and extremely easy way to update your favorite furniture. This means that you do not have to buy something new or repaint existing tables and chairs. Choose the patterns you like and decorate your furniture by them. Such a stylistic decision will allow you not only to “revive” your room, but also to give it a slight hue of vintage.

Everyone can do the decoupage of the table in the kitchen with their own hands.Just be careful and have good taste.

To decorate the table top or chairs you will not need a lot of expensive materials. The easiest way to decorate the surface of your desktop with the pictures you like. They can simply be glued to a special glue, then covered with several layers of varnish.

It is enough just to cut out the parts of cards you like or pictures from magazines. In skillful hands, such simple details will be an excellent decorative element that will give your old furniture a new life. For this purpose, you can use the pages of newspapers, calendars, or even plain wrapping paper.

Another affordable decoupage material is plain paper napkins. They can be bought at any supermarket or hardware store. Even in ordinary sets there are original colors and patterns that will complement the interior of your kitchen in an interesting way.

A more specific option is the cards that are intended for decoupage a wooden surface. There are sheets for different tastes, made in different subjects.For decoupage, both large and double-sided cards are issued, which gives more possibilities for decorating your old table or any other furniture. The main advantage of such cards is that, unlike plain paper or thin napkins, they do not break. Also, when in contact with water or glue, they do not wrinkle and do not decrease in size. Maps can be used not only on light surfaces, but also on dark ones.

Another material that is also specifically designed for decoupage is textured paper. Working with rice paper is extremely simple, so this option is perfect even for novice needlewomen who are just learning paperwork skills.

It is quite dense, but fibrous and well attached to the surface of the table. Due to the fibrous structure, such paper, by the way, also adapts well to the shape. Therefore, rice paper napkins can be glued even on tables or chairs with unusual shapes.

From this point of view, such types of paper as banana and mulberry are also interesting. They are rather rough and loose. This allows you to use it on coatings with different unusual textures.

Now let's understand directly in the process of decoupage.The easiest way to understand how this is done on the example of an ordinary kitchen table.

For a start, the table must be disassembled, removing the tabletop and unscrewing the legs. The surface of the tabletop must be thoroughly cleaned of visible and invisible dirt. To make the surface smooth, you can also use either a simple sandpaper or a sander. When the surface becomes uniform and smooth, the table can be assembled back.

Now you can go to the decoration of the surface. Choose the pictures you like and fix them with special glue. The sequence of patterns and the overall picture should be drawn up in your head in advance so that you know what to glue.

When the pictures are stuck, wait until the glue dries and coat them with varnish or acrylic paints. Applied both means in several layers. At the same time, each of them should dry out for a couple of hours. Otherwise, the picture will be blurry.

If the picture doesn’t seem to you to be clear enough, then you can additionally draw some details with watercolor or acrylic. Acrylic gives additional picture volume. Watercolor just helps to give the picture clarity and saturation.

In the art of decoupage there are five basic techniques.

This is the most popular technique. The picture is glued to the surface from the outside and coated on top with varnish or other fixers.

This technique of decoupage is used to decorate transparent surfaces. Here the picture or napkin is attached to the back side. It can be seen through the glass, but at the same time it is not damaged or deformed when you use the table in everyday life.

The main difference of this type of decoupage is that the picture is volumetric.

It looks interesting and smoky decoupage. He creates an imitation of spectacular artistic painting on a glass or wooden surface.

In addition to the basic techniques of decoupage there are additional ways to decorate your furniture. For example, crackle. This is a technique that allows you to visually age the surface, creating an imitation of cracks on it.To achieve this effect, you can simply put on the surface a mixture of PVA and ordinary paint and dry it immediately with a hairdryer. In addition, there is a more professional way to decorate the table with artificial cracks. Buy Crackle varnish, which is sold in special stores and use it to cover the finished image.

You can also add furniture decorated with decoupage, complementing it with special dies. They are sold in art stores. You can find the standard patterns - different numbers, hearts or letters.

As you can see, there are many ways to bring attractiveness to your old table or simply to give originality to standard furniture that does not fit the style of your kitchen interior.