How to Decoupage Furniture for a Unique Look

With so many large chain stores many people have furniture now that all looks the same. Odds are at least one of your friends has that same Ikea coffee table you have. Wouldn't it be nice if you could make your furniture stand out from the crowd? Actually you can easily improve your own furniture easily. A great way to personalize a piece of furniture or other item is to decoupage it. Decoupage is taking various pieces of paper, fabric, etc and putting them onto an object like a picture or a collage. Decoupage is really very easy to do and can really add some color and personality to your home. I even made my very own coffee table and then decoupaged it with comic books to make a very cool and popular coffee table that is one of a kind and adds lots of color to my living room. I will teach you how you too can decoupage so you can personalize your own stuff.

You can decoupage on many different kinds of materials like wood, metal, and glass. You can use all kinds of materials to decoupage with such as fabrics, papers, cards and more. They even have special decoupage paper made especially to be used for decoupaging.

Once you find your material you will want to cut the material out. After cutting the material you will want to work on a lay out. You should make sure to use lots of material it is better to have extra material and have to cut some from the edges then to not have enough material.

Next you will want to prepare the surface that you will be using. What you do will depend on the surface you are going to be working on. Regardless of the material you are going to want to make sure that it is clean first. If you are using wood or metal you might want to use a coat of latex before you start to help the project stick better.

Glue down your material to your surface. Plain white glue will work fine for this. You might want to water down plain white glue a little though. There is also special decoupage glue you can buy but white glue works fine. Once you have glued everything down let the glue dry before going to the next step.

The next step is to apply a varnish or a lacquer. Let that dry. After the first coat is dried sand it down. Continue to add layers as needed. Typically you will want to use 4 or 5 layers but you can do many more if you wish.

After your last layer or varnish has dried and been sanded you will have your own unique piece of furniture that no one else has. You will have a piece that will reflect your taste and personality and will match the theme of your room.