How to Use Artisan Enhancements Transfer Gel as a Decoupage Medium

Artisan Enhancements Transfer Gel works brilliantly as a decoupage medium.

Many of our retailers turn to Transfer Gel for all of their decoupage projects and workshops. They claim that Transfer Gel is more economical and fool-proof than traditional decoupage mediums.

In this post we will share a basic decoupage project using Transfer Gel.

We were attracted to the weathered green paint finish and metal handles on this thrift store tray, but felt that the dark floral motif needed updating.

We started by cleaning the tray and painting just the center in a muted taupe.

We discovered this sweet vintage farm print on the Transfer Gelsite and had it printed to fit our tray. We trimmed off the white border before proceeding.

Applying an even coat of Transfer Gel and minimizing brush strokes is important for decoupage. For this reason, we chose our 37mm oval brush for application. Being sure to cover the entire backside of the paper, clear to the corners, we brushed on a somewhat liberal coat of Transfer Gel.

We then turned our paper over and centered it on the tray. Using our hands, we gently smoothed out the paper. We set our tray aside for several hours as the Transfer Gel dried.

The next step was to seal the image with a topcoat of Transfer Gel. Once again we used our 37mm Oval Brush for an even application.

When the Transfer Gel was dry to the touch, we chose to add a subtle Scumble Glaze in order to give the image an aged effect.

We mixed 5 parts Scumble to 1 part soft brown paint for our custom glaze. We used our Medium Round Brush to apply the glaze.

To remove the excess glaze, we used a lint-free shop towel. A damp sea sponge works well for this step but because our glaze was so subtle for this project, we found the dry towel to be more effective as it removes less glaze than a damp sea sponge would have.

Once our Scumble Glaze had dried we were ready to apply a final sealer to our decoupage project. Clear Topcoat Sealer provides a beautiful matte finish. We applied 2 thin coats using our 45mm Topcoat Brush and allowing 24 hours of cure time between applications.

This outdated vintage tray is now ready to grace a Farmhouse kitchen counter top! Feel free to pin this post for future reference or to share the decoupage inspiration with friends! Please hashtag #artisanenhancements in your social media project posts! We love to see what you’re working on!

Retailers and customers of Artisan Enhancements enjoy the versatility and environmentally friendliness of our art finishing products.

There is no end to the creative possibilities when you have the appropriate tools and products at your fingertips!