Large tray with cracks
Today I will be decorating a large wooden tray for you.
As you can see I already painted my tray with white primer. I want the cracks to be white so this will work perfectly. If you want the cracks to be a different colour then use acrylics instead of primer. The back of my tray wasn’t painted because I will cover it with the finish colour on top of the crackle later on.
Now we can start gluing using decoupage glue. I use ordinary PVA glue which works very well. Firstly I apply generous amount of glue on my tray and then I place my paper on top of it. Then I start applying another layer of glue on top starting from the middle squeezing air bubbles underneath the paper.
When my paper is glued I take a sharp knife and I cut excess paper around my tray. I must say this wasn’t the best and easiest thing to do as soaked wet paper doesn’t cut that easily. I would suggest to cut your paper before gluing. Make sure you dry your work overnight before next step
When everything is dry I apply a layer of single step crackle around the edge and let it dry overnight again.
Now I mix several paints to match the colours of my tray and I start applying it with a brush. You need to be fairly quick in doing so and try not to go over painted parts as this will remove paint already applied. Basically you apply stroke of paint and let it be, it doesn’t have to be perfect as cracks will mask all imperfections. I work my way part by part and I use either hairdryer or heat gun over my paint to create larger cracks. You don’t need to use warm air this should crack on its own but hot air makes cracks bigger. Cracks will start appearing in the stroke direction. Then once again let it dry overnight.
At the end I use a little beat of matching paint and I tidy up the corners where edges meet the base of my tray I but forgot to turn my camera on so I can’t show you this part but I think you can see that I added little beat of paint in corners.
At the very end I apply several layers of varnish. But because I glued whole sheet of paper there is no need to apply 40 layers of varnish to level the surface as we did in other projects. Everything is on the same level so I applied 6 layers of clear water based varnish and my tray is finished.
Thank you so much for watching and I will see you soon with another video.
Bye!
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