After seeing all the cute pieces of furniture on Pinterest with fun images and wording added to them I decided to do a little research and see if I could figure this out. I had this white table that needed a paint job and decided to try it out.
First I painted the legs Annie Sloan Napoleonic Blue and the top Old White. I waited to wax it until the image was on. When I got this table it had been painted white and the paint was thick and uneven in places, so it did require a little sanding to even it out. Once it was painted with ASCP and lightly distressed I went looking for an image to put on it. Thegraphicsfairy.com has tons of really cute images so it was just a matter of deciding which one would look best. Then it was time to try the different methods of transferring.
There are several transfer methods listed on the Graphics Fairy website but I read a few things on line as well as on Pinterest and decided the one that sounded easiest was the wax paper method. I needed the image to be bigger than 8.5 x 11 so I found a website called blockposters.com that will break the image up depending on the size you want and print it onto regular size paper. I found that reversing the image on my computer before importing it into Block Posters worked best. I cut wax paper the size of copy paper and tried sending it through my HP Officejet Pro. My printer ate the paper and got stuck. So I cut another piece and taped it to a piece of card stock. That went through my printer without getting stuck but I guess because wax paper is slippery the image had spaces where there shouldn’t have been. I think as the printer was feeding the wax paper through it would slip a little so the image wasn’t perfect. Wax paper did not work for me.
Next I tried the freezer paper method. Freezer paper also does not go through my printer. 🙁 So once again I taped it to card stock and this time it came through and the image was perfect. Once I had the image printed out on several different pieces of freezer paper I cut it and fit it together. You will print the image on the shiny side of the freezer paper so be careful as you do this as to not smudge the image. I lightly wet the top of the table where I would be putting the image. Too much water will make the image run so it should be just damp. Then I laid the image where I wanted it and carefully rubbed it with a straight edge, something like a credit card. Be careful not to move the paper because getting it back just right is probably impossible. 😉 I rubbed for a while but when I removed the freezer paper I was not happy with the image. It was there but very light. If you wanted to trace over an image with an ink pen or marker or paint over the image with a thin brush this would be a good method. Wish I had, but I didn’t take a picture of this. I just painted over it and tried something else.
My first thought was to go with the mod podge method but I was hoping the wax paper and freezer paper would work better. So this time I went with the mod podge. I found a post on Pinterest that was a little different then the one on Graphics Fairy. I printed the reverse image on regular printer paper and once again cut it out and taped it together. Then I put a thin layer of mod podge over the entire image using a sponge brush. Try not to go over the image to many times because again it will smear. Then I put the image where I wanted it on the top of the table. Measure before so you know where you want it. Then I lightly smoothed the paper down on the table removing any air bubbles that where under the paper. Let this dry for several hours. I left mine over night.
Once it is completely dry use a spray bottle to wet the paper. You don’t want it soaking wet but the paper should be wet through.
Then starting in the middle of the image use your finger to rub the paper. It will start to roll up and come off but the image will stay.
You can see the the paper just breaks up but the ink remains. Pretty cool huh!
As you can see in a few places the ink came up with the paper but I think it adds to the vintage look so I was ok with it. Then it was time to put a coat of clear wax on it and just a little dark wax. I put the hardware back on. BTW I painted the original hardware from this table with ASCP and then waxed it – it turned out great. Here is the finished piece!
Now that I have figured out how to add fun images to my furniture I will definitely be doing more of this! Hope this post was helpful and thanks for stopping by!
Cindy
