Decoupage of chairs: the process of decoration

Decorating furniture with your own hands helps you save on purchasing a new table, chest or other piece of furniture. Thanks to simple tricks you can create unique things that will only be with you. Furniture takes on individual features and adds style and brightness to the home. We suggest you learn how to do the decoupage of the chair with your own hands.

Decoupage of furniture

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

Decorate in the style of decoupage can be dishes, boxes, decor items and much more. Recently, it has also become popular to decorate in this way any furniture: tables, chests of drawers, wardrobes, chairs and so on. This technique allows you to stay away from buying new furniture and make a personality in the design of housing. A decoupage of chairs also helps to diversify the interior.

Necessary tools and materials

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

• Several brushes of different width and density;
• Adhesive for decoupage or PVA;
• Pictures (napkins, illustrations from magazines, wallpapers and so on);
• Paint (acrylic or for woodworking);
• Pencils or markers (can be useful if you need to draw some elements of the image);
• Varnish (decoupage or usual);
• primer;
• sandpaper;
• Putty on wood;
• scissors;
• Scotch.

As additional materials may need a variety of decorative elements: sequins, crystals, shells, buttons, ribbons and so on.

Stages of the decoupage process

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

• Thinking over the future decor, the idea of decoupage;
• Preparation of stool surface;
• Background preparation;
• Work with a pattern;
• Decor (application of paints, additional elements, painting);
• Varnish coating.

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

Idea for decoupage

Decoupage chairs (photo ideas see above) can be performed both for the purpose of completely covering the surface, and partially. That is, you can zadekorirovat picture whole seat, backrest and legs. But this appearance will be too congested. It is better to stop on a partial décor and apply the image only to the seat or backrest. You can distribute small elements throughout the surface of the chair.

Think in advance the theme of the future design, as well as look for relevant pictures. At this stage, you also need to select the appropriate shade of paint. After all, you need to make a background.

When the design option is ready, you can start the work itself.

Preparation of a chair for decoupage

If you decorate an unprepared chair, the decor will lie ugly and will not last long. The same will happen with poorly processed furniture. Therefore, this stage of work should be given due attention.

To begin with, the chair must be sanded, that is, remove the old varnish. For this, fine sandpaper is used. If the varnish is poorly washed, then you need to use a grinder. Work with her better outdoors in a special mask. The varnish is removed from the entire chair. Then the chair is wiped with a dry rag to get rid of the dust.

Now it is necessary to apply a primer. Further it is desirable to cover the surface with a layer of putty. This is necessary to hide scratches, roughness and uneven stools. You can cover not completely the surface, but only the areas with defects. When the putty dries, the chair is covered once again with a primer.

Background preparation

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

Cover the entire surface of the stool with paint, leaving the place where the picture will be stuck, empty. These areas need to be painted with light color (white or beige). This is done to make the drawing better visible. After all, work occurs with a thin layer of paper, and in 99% of cases, the dark paint is visible through it. From this view becomes not what he thought at the beginning of the work.

After the background dries, you can start working with illustrations.

Apply pictures

Prepare your pictures: napkins, scraps and pages from magazines, pieces of wallpaper, printouts. As was mentioned above, any paper illustrations are suitable to perform decoupage of a chair.

Master-class for drawing pictures:

1. Cut out the necessary decor elements from the paper. For example, you conceived to decorate a chair with roses, then you need to cut 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 excess layers, if it's a plain paper, then glue the pieces of scotch to the back side several times and remove it. Do everything carefully so as not to damage the picture itself.
3. Pour decoupage glue into the container. If you use PVA, then dilute it with a little water.
4. Put a suitable picture on the desired part of the chair and cover it with glue on top.
5. So apply all the pictures.

Before finishing the decoupage of chairs, let the illustrations dry completely.

The final stage of decoupage of furniture

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

1. Take pencils or markers and draw contours.
2. Take paint and thin brushes, draw a background, contours, shadows on a drawing.
3. Use fine sandpaper and make scrapes on the stools.
4. Add gilding and silver to the bulging places of the chair.
5. Walk with a wide brush, first dousing it a little in dark-colored paint, if the chair is light - on the edges of the back and seat. This will also create an effect of wear.

Try to do everything possible to make the drawing and background one. Then the end result will be terrific. If the picture is highlighted, then a feeling of incompleteness is created and all the elegant appearance is lost. Therefore, the edges of the illustration should be slightly processed with a sponge soaked in the same paint as the background color.

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

Do not be afraid to experiment. Sometimes the best works are created thanks to unexpected solutions. Over time, when your skills in decoupage techniques increase, you will be able to use additional materials to expand the design possibilities (for example, lacquer craquelure to create decorative cracks).