FAQ: How do you paint signs with stencils?

I was actually ‘in the process’ of taking pictures and doing this post a couple of weeks ago when I was so unceremoniously interrupted by etsy; and side-tracked by that whole process.  And while I went into great detail on how I do things in that post (per the requirements of etsy), I did not include every tiny detail.  It was long enough as it was!   I’ll be reusing some of the photos from  that  post , but not going over ALL the same information.   Just filling in some of the blanks.

I almost always have a stash of ‘ready to stencil’ boards on hand for sign making.   That prep work is kinda BORING and when I feel like creating, I don’t feel like having to do the boring part first!  BUT, there are also times when I’m NOT feeling creative at ALL, but I still need to use my time wisely and be PRODUCTIVE.  That is when I sand and base coat my sign boards.  PLUS, I can   sand, base coat, topcoat, touch up the edges and distress a good FIFTY sign boards OUTSIDE on a dry day.  If I have to do that work inside on my craft table I can get maybe five done at a time!  So I really TRY to never have to prep sign boards inside; except maybe for an occasional custom order.

That way, when the creative mood hits and I’m ready to stencil on the sign designs, I can get LOTS done in one day.  I almost NEVER make one sign at a time.  Even custom orders get sandwiched in with more ‘like signs’.  It’s just a better use of my time to do several at a time.   It takes the same amount of time set up and clean up and to clean a stencil after TEN uses as it does after ONE.   Som why not use it ten times and save on clean up time?!?

I store my sign stencils in manilla folders.  I have WAY too many of them to just put one per file, so I file similar themes together and use paper between them in the folder.

BEFORE I start stenciling I set up my sink for cleaning the stencils.  The SOONER you get that left over paint into soapy water, the easier it will be to clean.    I”ve found that DAWN dish soap works best.  I put a couple of squirts into a dish pan and fill about half way with warm water. (which becomes sudsy!)  As you can see from the above stencil, not ALL of the paint always comes off.  And some people will tell you that you don’t need to clean the paint off at all.  But if you want to get more than 10 uses out of a stencil, you’d best clean off some of that left over paint!  If it builds up enough you will no longer have a ‘sharp (as in PRECISE!) edge to your stencils and you letters will be sloppy.

I use acrylic craft paints for my sign making.  And FOLK ART brand is the only brand I will use for the lettering.  It’s thicker than any other acrylic craft paints and has more pigment.    I KNOW they make special ‘stencil paint’ and special brushes for that special paint.  (I remember stenciling a sunflower border in my kitchen 20 years ago like that.  The paint came in little round plastic cups and was more like a soft CRAYON than paint.)   That is NOT the stuff you should use for making signs!!  Use the liquid craft paints; the thicker the better when it comes to using stencils!

These are the kinds of  ’pouncers’ that ‘they‘ tell you to use.  THEY are wrong!  These do not work very well at all.  And trust me, I’ve made THOUSANDS of signs, and  I  KNOW what works best!  These sponge or soft rubber pouncers just fall apart after a couple of uses, and they don’t give you a very sharp line at all.  I used to spend HOURS touching up the messy edges of my lettering before I happened upon the BEST applicators ever!

YEP!!! Cosmetic make up wedges!  These work like a dream, and are much easier to hold onto and my hand doesn’t get all cramped up when I am making a lot of signs.

*CLEANING YOUR PAINTING SPONGE AFTER USE:  I actually don’t  bother cleaning mine.  I just wrap in a plactic baggie and store in a sealed plastic container.  These don’t stay as “moist and ready for re-use” as the brushes and rollers that I save  for re-use in a similar way,  as shown here.  But it still saves a lot of water otherwise wasted for cleaning such a small item.  Besides, I usually make SO MANY signs at a time, that I practically wear tehm out in one use!  Still I save them.  If the paint has dried out on the end, I can usually just cot of the dry crusty part and get another use or two out of that same sponge again.

I use a scrap piece of cardboard for my ‘paint palette’.  Squirt out a blob of the black paint and VERY LIGHTLY dab the wide end of your sponge into the paint; just enough to get a little bit of paint.  Then you POUNCE your sponge around on a dry area of your palette to work the paint down into the sponge.   You want it to be ‘moist’ with the paint, but not WET.

Using blue painters tape, tape your stencil into place, then POUNCE your paint loaded sponge over the open parts of your stencil.  DON’T RUB it.  POUNCE it.  Quick, short dabbing motions until it’s fully covered with paint.  You WILL need to re-load your sponge with paint often.  DO NOT try to speed up the process by using more paint on your sponge.  All that does is make your edges BLEED.  

This is what your lettering will look like if you have too much paint on your sponge.  The edges will BLEED and be sloppy.  So, yes it takes longer to use a very lightly paint loaded sponge; but you get a better product!

THIS is how you want your lines to look!  When you are completely done stenciling your design on your board, immediately take your stencil and submerge it into your pan of soapy water.  I let mine soak for a few minutes.  Then lay the stencil flat in the sink, put a drop of Dawn dish soap onto a kitchen scrubber (like a greenie) and GENTLY scrub the paint residue off your stencil.  As I already said, not ALL of it comes off.  And DO be careful to not ‘snag’ the pointy parts of your stencil with your scrubber.  I lay my washed stencils on a towel to dry.  

I kind of got ahead of myself a bit there.  FIRST, right after you remove your stencil, your lettering will have ‘gaps’ in it.  That is just the nature of a stencil.  For example, they can’t completely cut out the middle  of the letter “O”, so they leave little ‘tabs’ to hold the center in place.  PLease, PLEASE, PLEEEEASE  never leave your signs looking like this with the ‘tab gaps’ showing.  It’s very quick and easy to fill them in!

Use a very fine paint brush with just a tiny bit of paint on it and ‘connect the lines’.  Be sure the lettering is dry before you do this so you don’t smear your paint.  And you might need to thin your paint a little for this process.  But only thin ‘a dot’ of paint on your palette.  NEVER add water to the bottle!

On some signs, you can barely notice the gaps (top sign); but still, please take ONE minute to fill them in.  It looks SO much more professional with them filled it.  I literally CRINGE when I see a sign made from a stencil with the gaps showing!!

And with a little bit of practice, you’ll be able to stencil HUGE signs like this!  I actually did FIVE of these signs in one ‘sitting’!

Distressing and finishing your sign:

No pictures for these last instructions.  I USED to sand my signs and distress them again AFTER I lettered them.  That was MOSTLY because, before I discovered using the make up sponges for my applicator, I had a lot of ‘bleeding’ no matter how DRY my applicators were.  That extra sanding took care of  some of that bleeding around the edges.

Since using the wedges for applying the lettering I find that I don’t ever NEED to add that extra sanding step.  So now I distress MORE when I am prepping my sign board, DON’T distress again after, and save myself a little extra work!

Do add a coat of varnish to your finished sign.  I prefer MATTE (NO SHINE) but it can be hard to find.  I just had to spend $56.00 on a GALLON of matte varnish because they were out of quarts and are discontinuing it altogether at the paint store!  sigh.

I buy my stencils from several different places on-line.  MOST of them have the very same stencils and pretty much the same price ranges, so it doesn’t much matter who you buy from.  Be prepared for a bit of ‘sticker shock’!  Stencils are NOT cheap; and probably not really worth buying if you are only going to use then ONE time.    I buy mine in bulk quantities to get discounts; usually at least $100.00 worth of stencils at a time.

Happy sign making!

Dear etsy, HERE’S your sign!

My dearest blog readers,

Please pardon this post and all the annoying superfluous pictures of equipment and piles of wood.  etsy has ‘requested’  that I provide them with PROOF that “I” hand make the signs that I sell in my etsy shop.  I sent them links to the several posts in my blog where I show and tell how I make my signs, but that was not good enough for etsy.  Nope.  I am required to take CURRENT step by step pictures;  and those pictures MUST include a piece of paper with the date on it.

***EDITED TO ADD:  Oh my word!!  I just ‘double checked’ the incredibly ANAL list of etsy’s requirements to prove all this, and I see that I overlooked that I was supposed to also put my etsy username on that dated piece of paper that I had to show in every picture!  (so that they can be SURE that it really was me who took the pictures)  Hopefully posting it here on my blog will satisfactorily fulfil that requirement.  Afterall I DO continually promote my etsy shop here in my blog.  ***

I really couldn’t think of an easier way to ‘show and explain’ to etsy my sign making process from start to finnish other than posting it here in my blog.  I wonder HOW other etsy sellers do it when they are questioned about their hand mades???  Far too many photos and details to be able to just attach pictures to an email!!

HERE YOU GO ETSY!  THIS IS HOW I DO WHAT I DO AND WHAT I DO IT WITH:

Paint brushes used to paint sign surfaces.

MORE paint brushes and paints.

Yep!  I buy my much of my paint by the gallon.  And mix some of my own colors in smaller containers.

Stacks of wood for sign making.

MORE wood for signs.

And still MORE wood.  The wood I use is ‘reclaimed’ (stuff that other people were going to throw away!)  So I get as much as I can, whenever it’s available.  When I get into ‘sign production mode’, I can easily use up two big stacks of wood in a weeks time.

This is my scroll saw that I cut sign boards to length with.

And this is how I position the wood for cutting.  Sorry, I don’t have enough arms and hands to be able to take a picture of me doing the actual cutting AND take a picture at the same time.

This is my 4″ belt sander that I use to sand the edges and surfaces of the sign boards before I paint them.

After I cut and sand the sign boards I ‘base coat’ them with black paint.  Then I let that paint dry.  (Sorry I forgot to take a picture of the paint drying!)

After the black base coat is dry, I paint the top coat color and let it dry.

After the color top coat dries I use this orbital hand sander to ‘distress’ the sign; by sanding off some of the topcoat and allowing areas of the black base coat to show through.

Then I go to my file of stencils and select the file that contains the stencil that I need for that particular sign.

I probalby have 50 or 60 stencils in my current sign making repertoire.  I keep them in file folderds of 2-4 stencils each; grouping similar themes together for easy identification.  This is the file that contains the “Paris” stencil used to make the specific sign you inquired about.  I also have other PARIS stencils in different fonts.

I position the stencil on the painted and dsitressed sign board, applying some blue painters tape to the egdes to hold it in place.

Using acrylic paint and a small sponge applicator, the paint is gently and carefully ‘dabbed’ over the cut out parts of the stencil.

I carefully remove the stencil, then remove the blue painters tape that held it in place;  and take the used stencil to the kitchen and put it in a pan of soapy water to soak for a bit before I wash off the paint residue (which never actaully comes ALL the way off, as you can see in the picture of the stencil).  During this time the stenciled on paint dries.  (sorry again, no picture of the paint drying!)

After the stenciled on lettering dries, I use a very fine paint brush to touch up any details that need it.  Let that dry, then I apply a coat of matte varnsih and let it dry.  (no picture of varnish drying either!)  And yes I DO buy my varnish by the gallon too.

(undated stock photo) After I apply the varnish I put the paint brush I used to apply the varnish in a jar of water to soak.  Then I use a hammer to attach a ‘nailless sawtooth hanger’ to the back of the sign.

But in reality, I  NEVER make just ‘one sign’ at any given time.   To maximize my productivity I work in a modified assembly line manner.

Some days I’ll do nothing but sand a couple of piles of sign boards.

Then the next day I’ll paint them all with the black basecoat, and leave them out to dry.

Then the next day I’ll paint them all with the topcoat color, and leave them out to dry.

Then the next day, I’ll hand sand and distress that same batch.

Then after all that is done,  I store those stacks of ‘ready to stencil’ boards in my craft room.

Sorry !  I forgot my ‘date card’ on this picture!  Having a lot of boards prepped and ready to stencil really streamlines the whole process for me, and cuts down on the actual amount of time I ultimately spend on each sign.  Predominately set up and clean up time.

And by having a multitude of boards ‘prepped and ready to paint’ when I get a request for a custom color of a certain sign; I am able to go ahead and make a whole BATCH of that particular sign, in several colors; and stock up my etsy shop.

It doesn’t take any more TIME and effort to clean a stencil that was used to make six signs that it does to clean it after making just one sign; so why not MAKE MORE and WASTE LESS TIME ON CLEAN UP.  Same goes for paint brushes.

Finished signs are stacked and stored on a shelf.  (Heaven forbid!!!  I forgot my date card again!)

So, etsy, does THAT clear up any suspicions you may have had that I am  not hand crafting my signs myself??

It sure would be nice if etsy would give sellers ‘some kind of recognition’ for having gone through this tedious process of proving they hand make their items.  Perhaps even a simple notation of some kind that this particular item has been individually vetted by etsy would be nice.

4.26.13 **Edited AGAIN to add:

So, now that etsy has seen waht they need to see, I can explain why all this REALLY ‘gets my goat’!  And it’s not that I minded having to PROVE that my items are hand made by me.  What is so annoying is the sales of ILLEGAL licensed designs is absolutely rampant on etsy, and they DO NOTHING about it.

The ONLY time they will question a seller of such items is IF the holder of the license of that design (Disney, Sports Teams, Barbie, Hello Kitty, spongeBob . . .there are THOUSANDS of them) complains.   Because that is ‘all the law requires.

BUT, if one person, ANY one person, contacts to etsy and says “I don’t think that person hand-made that item.”  A full-blown investigation is launched.  And they require you to show every single step in the process and every single tool and piece of equipment used. (as you can tell from my post!) It’s a LOT of work, let me tell you.

And ALL it would take for them to validate someone selling licensed designs is to have them show their ‘credentials’.  And it HIGHLY unlikely that ANY of those sellers actually DO have permission.  It costs a LOT of money to ‘buy’ that permission.  If they could afford to legally acquire permission to sell a licensed design, they wouldn’t NEED to sell on etsy!

It’s the ‘turning a blind eye’ to illegally sold items on etsy that really annoys me about this whole situation!  It’s perfectly okay to sell ILLEGAL products, but don’t you dare sell a hand-made item that bares any resemblance to something that is manufactured!

Stepping off my soapbox !

Quickie cupcake Christmas ornaments

Now these aren’t the MOST realistic looking cupcake ornaments, BUT, they are pretty fast, easy and inexpensive.

They would look more real if I could figure out a way to ‘frost’ them with spackling compound.  I have the frosting tips and the compound and I know how to use a piping bag.  It’s just that I’d need three hands to do it because these are so lightweight that they’d have to be ‘held in place’ while I pipes, and I need 2 hands for piping!  So, this method will have to do for now!

Ingredients:

Styro snowball ornaments from Dollar Tree

Mini cupcake paper liners

Cardboard circles cut from scrap board to fit inside your paper cups.

Glue your cardboard into the bottom of your cups.  IF your cardboard has a ‘design’ on it, be sure the design is facing UP.  Otherwise it will show through the bottom of your cup, as the paper is fairly thin.  I do this to ALL my cups at once, first.

You really NEED to use tacky glue for this next step.  I pretty much use nothing but tacky glue (unless otherwise specified) for all of my gluing.  For these in specific, the tacky glue is especially important because you have to HOLD the paper in place until the glue sets; which is only about a minute with tacky glue.

Put a good sized dot of glue (bigger than a pea) in the center of the cardboard base.  Then put glue around the entire inside rim of your cupcake liner, going about 1/8″ down.  With the way the lined is folded, you’ll only be getting glue on the INNER folds of your cup.  (sorry! forgot to take a pic of that step!  Will TRY to remember to take one and add it in later)

Holding the tip of the ornament, place it, centered into your cup; then use both hands to gently press the cup to the ball.  It won’t hold completely right away.  Just keep holding and gently pressing down for about a minute, until it no longer pulls away when released.

Just in case you’re tempted to skip adding the cardboard to the inside of your cup; this is what you will get!  It will look like the one on the left.

I let mine dry overnight before this next step.  Apply glitter to the exposed part of the ball.  Apply a liquid adhesive (nod podge, varnish, thinned white glue) with a paint brush and sprinkle on your glitter.  I do this over a bowl.  After a few cupcakes there is enough glitter in the bowl that you can ‘roll’ your cupcakes in the glitter.    Let this dry overnight too.

Add your sprinkles!  Apply some of the same liquid adhesive to JUST the top area and sprinkle on your sprinkles.  I found a BIG bottle of these colored sprinkles at Dollar Tree!

Let dry and you are done!

I got these cookie tins at Dollar Tree too.

Added tissue paper to nestle the cupcakes in the tip and a little clay ornament to decorate the top!

I’ll be selling these in my etsy shop

UPcycled old jars

I’ve got a HUGE stash of old jars (mostly SMALL ones) that I have been saving for AGES for ‘just the right’ craft project to use them for.   THIS just might be it!  (click on the brown bold THIS to go to the tutorial)

How, if I can just FIND some of the pretty paper napkins everyone is using on crafts like this!!  All the blogs I’ve seen state they are napkins they already HAD.  Anyone know WHERE to look for napkins like this.  LOTS of craft projects to use them for.

 

How I make my itty bitty crowns

Getting ‘crown fever’ like me?  Hankering to put a crown on anything you can? Here’s how I make these tiny crowns.

I buy the KRAFT color cardstock at the craft store.  For some reason it’s heavier than any of the other colors.  Cut one sheet in half  lengthwise; giving you 2 pieces measuring 4-1/4″ x 11″.  Then cut each of those into 1″ strips.  You can make 22 crowns out of one piece of paper.

I use a scrap piece of paper the same length, folded in half as a guide for the halfway mark.  You want it to overlap a bit, so apply your glue slightly FARTHER than the halfway mark, as shown above.

 I use Aleen’s tacky glue.  It is my ‘go to’ glue for just about everything!  These are BIG 16 oz bottles, and I can easily go through one in a month!  I don’t like their bottles for applying the glue with though,  So I have a smaller Elmers bottle with the twist top that I fill with Aleen’s to use.

Roll your partly glued piece into a little tube.  It will end up being double thick with a smidge of an overlap.  Slip it over your finger (whichever finger it fits over!) and with your other hand make sure it’s all tightly pressed together; AND nice and ROUND.

I do mine ‘assembly line’ style.   Gluing ALL my strips into the cylinders at once before going on to the next step.

 Let them dry completely.  I leave mine to dry overnight.

Once completely dry it’s time to cut the points of your crown.  You’ll need a VERY pointy pair of scissors.  I highly recommend snippers like this as opposed to regular handles scissors.  Much less fatigue and NO BLISTERS from the handles!

Just snip at an angle, then  snip again to make a “V”, then keep snipping all the way around.  If your crowns are smushing when you try to cut them, they aren’t DRY enough.  And you have one perfect tiny crown!  To apply the glitter, I use a pair of needle nose pliers to hold my crown by.  Brush glue all over the outside of the crown then DIP it into my container of glue.  Drop onto a plate to let dry.  Do ALL your crowns like this; then go back and glitter the spot that you missed where your pliers were.  Once completely dry you can spray with a clear varnish if you want to minimize ‘shedding’ of the glitter.

Everything looks better with a CROWN!!

For making the vintage sheet music crowns, follow the same basic steps, but glue your music paper to the cardstock first.  No glitter needed as the final step for these.

 

For the love of BEACH!

Loading up the Cruiser with as much stuff as it will hold to take to Stars and restock.  Want to be sure it’s EXTRA full, in case I am too busy with the show next week to get in.  THEN it will be time to load the trailer for the show.  Doing a LOT of pricing, wrapping and packing this week.  Which does not make for very fun blog fodder!  So I found THIS to spark your inspiration!

I love, LOVE, love glass floats!  I Soooooooooooooooo covet a big bowl full of them every time I go to the coast and see them for sale.  Alas, the price is just too high for my and my frugal fingers simple CANNOT pry open my wallet to ‘shell’ out the cash!    Thanks to Craftberry Bush blog, now I (and YOU!) can make my own!!  

Might not be able to find the BIG clear Christmas balls just yet, but trust me; I WILL be buying a BUNCH of them as soon as they are available!   Making some to keep for myself, and lots more to SELL.  

I’m already pondering ways to ‘tweak’ them a little.  Like maybe using the decorative fish net you can buy at party supply stores to wrap them in, instead of tying the jute myself???     Pottery Barn sells a set of six of them for just over $25.00.  Even paying full price for the glass balls, I’m sure this DIY is MUCH cheaper!

What is DRY BURSH PAINTING??

I get that question often enough to warrant a post/tutorial (of sorts!  No pictures though)

You can see pictures of numerous previous posts where I used the dry brush technique here, if you need some visuals.

I use this technique as often as possible.  It’s super fast and easy, and works on surfaces that have a lot of TEXTURE, that would otherwise take a lot of work to FULLY cover with paint.  And you get about the same look as painting, then sanding to distress.

I remember learning to dry brush in the 5th grade.  We could only use primary colors and had to paint one of the zoo animals that the teacher had put up pictures of.  Back then I was NOT very artistic.  I painted a blue elephant!   Anyhoooooooooooooooo . . .  dry brush painting IS so easy a 5th grader can do it.  It’s actually easier to DO than it is to EXPLAIN!   I wish I could SHOW you how.  That would be the ideal way to learn.

Don’t dip your brush in any water and don’t load very much paint onto your brush.

Have a ‘blotter’ next to your paint container, dip JUST THE TIPS of your paint brush into your paint, then swoosh your brush around on your blotter to distribute that little bit of paint on your brush and make it nice and DRY.  LIGHTLY, ever so lightly brush your first stroke across the surface of the item you are painting.  You should get about 50% coverage; leaving 50% of the area it’s original color.

It’s easiest to do on TEXTURED surfaces, like woven baskets, wicker, rough cut wood with a lot of raised grain; because if you lightly apply your paint you will only hit the HIGH SPOTS.

Practice on a scrap piece of wood or the back or under side of a piece of furniture until you get the feel for it.  OR buy an old basket for 99 cents at a thrift store and practice on that.  Then you can use the basket as a gift basket later on.  The secret is to have as little paint as possible on your brush.  Remember, if you don’t get as much coverage as you’d hoped with the first stroke, you can always go back and add MORE.  But if you get TOO MUCH on the first time, you can’t take it away.

Go look at the posts/pictures and you’ll have a much better idea.    Happy painting!

Did you do any AFTER Christmas shopping for craft supplies on clearance?

Here’s what I did with some of the stuff I bought on clearance from Dollar Tree:

Vintage sheet music covered tin stars go well with Christmas / winter decor.

AND  with basic white every day decor.  (like I have in my booth at Stars!)

AWESOME, big, 3D stars!

What a FUN party decorating idea!

Not on clearance, but still just a DOLLAR!  Altered New Years party hat!

CLICK HERE TO SEE THE ENTIRE POSTS.  over on my Dollar Diva blog.

Still licking my wounds . . .

And mourning the loss of all the pictures on my computer, so I figure this is a good time to take a break from blogging.  I just need some time to re-group and gather my wits.  Everyone is so busy with the holidays right now anyhow, you really don’t have TIME to read all your favorite blogs.   And it’s just too late in the season for me to try re-taking pictures for all the holiday projects I lost.  I look at it this way, next year will be TWICE as good!

So, for now I’m going to start on my Valentine crafting and focus on getting LOTS of new product listed in my etsy shop; and enjoy looking at other blogs for great holiday ideas like this:

How GORGEOUS is that?!?!?  The tutorial is HERE.

I wish you all a very Merry Christmas.  Don’t forget to say “Happy birthday Jesus!”  (it was a tradition to have a birthday cake for Jesus when I was little!)  And please don’t let the holidays stress you out!  That is SO NOT the reason for this season.  If the stress is too much, take a break!  The world won’t end if you send out brief holiday emails instead of printed color picture newsletters!   Or if a few packages arrive AFTER Christmas, instead of before.  Or if you BUY cookies (or premade dough!) instead of making them from scratch.

If you don’t ENJOY it, don’t DO it!  Your friends and family will probably be GRATEFUL that they don’t have to reciprocate and keep up!

Happy, REALLY HAPPY Holidays!

Vintage gate leg table with missing severely damaged veneer

I asked Michael to ‘keep an eye out’ for a gate leg or drop leaf table.   SO, THIS is what he dragged home:

You can’t really SEE in this picture, because of the glare from the sun, but the veneer top is HALF missing!  It has been sitting for MONTHS while I racked my brain trying to think of HOW I can fix this much damage.  What was he thinking?!?!

But, in his defense, I must say that  I always tell him “It doesn’t matter how badly damaged a table top is, I can fix it (or work with the damage for a primitive look!).  Just be sure the LEGS are in good condition; because legs are hard to sand, and have to be done by hand.   I just didn’t ‘qualify’ that criteria by stating SOLID wood top.

And I did once fix up a damaged veneer top oak pedestal table.  But this current table is different.  One entire leaf of it had to have the veneer removed, which Michael did for me.  Then there were several ‘stripes’ of missing veneer.  Just sanding and re-staining was NOT going to cut it on this table.

I couldn’t really even just PAINT the top, because that just wouldn’t ‘go’ with the ornate legs.  AND you’d still be able to SEE how one side was slightly lower than the other when both ends are up.  If “I” were just going to use it myself, I wouldn’t care.  I’d just leave the bad side down and against a wall.  But we need to SELL this stuff!  What to do??? WHAT TO DO!?!?!

As I prepped the top by sanding, even MORE veneer peeled off!  YIKES.  This table top just may have to go to the dreaded ‘burn pile’;  salvage the legs  and add a new top.  Then it hit me!  COVER the top!!

With old book pages!  The above photo was taken while it was still a little wet.  Just use liquid laundry starch as your adhesive.  For a big job like this I use a paint brush to apply my starch.  Apply it to the surface, then to the back of the paper.  Place the paper and brush over it again with the starch.  The older the book, the more yellowed your pages will get.

Most of the small bubbles and buckling will diminish as the piece dries.  But you can always pull the paper back up if you need to reposition it or get big bubbles out.

Along the curved sides I just used the handle of my brush to ‘gently scrape’ along the curve, and tear away the excess.  Be sure your paper is very WET with starch while doing this, and tear VERY SLOWLY.

This picture shows how much more the paper yellows with the starch.  That paper is still wet, hence the blotchiness.   As you apply your paper, be mindful of the ‘pattern’ you are creating.  Try not to have it too matchy-matchy, but not TOO haphazard and busy either.

And here’s the finished table!  Lookin’ GOOD!!!  I haven’t added a sealer on top yet.  While it’s not ‘necessary’, for things like table and dresser tops that will get a lot of wear and tear, it’s a good idea.  Be sure to use WATER based MATTE varnish. You don’t want any SHINE.

This really is a pretty ‘quick and easy’ process.  Tear out all your book pages before you start the papering process.  I left the torn edge, but you can trim it away if you prefer.  You can ever trim away the entire border if you wish.  OR add some additional pages on top at different angles, like I did with the picture pages on this desk.   *(Notice the difference the AGE of the book pages makes!)

This is a very ‘flexible’ look.  Soft enough to be blended in with shabby chic.  And ‘heavy’ enough to go with the primitive look.

But be forewarned!  It is ADDICTIVE!  Once you finish your first project, you’ll be wandering around the house looking for MORE things to paper!

I used pages from an old church hymnal for this cylinder storage box (almost a foot stool size).

SPECIAL HINT FOR LAMP SHADES:  Paper the INSIDE as well as the outside.  When the light shines through, all you seams and overlaps are OVERLY obvious.  By double layering your paper (one layer outside and one layer inside) it will minimize this.