Have you ever wanted to put a beautiful, vintage image on a piece of furniture but perhaps don't have the money to buy a transfer? Transfers are gorgeous but they can be pricey. I've found that doing an Image Transfer with a transfer medium can give you the same results at a lower cost! I want to show you how you can do this super easy method using Cottage Paint products. (I will eventually get a video tutorial up on my Face Book page but until then, this step by step guide can help.)
Although you can do image transfers onto bare wood, I'm going to be showing you how to do one on a painted surface.
Step One: Clean and Prep Your Furniture.
Once you've decided on a piece of furniture, you need to clean it and do a little prep work. Cottage Paint Furniture Clean & Prep is an awesome product for this! It comes with a spray nozzle but when I was speaking with Gail Rogers, (Owner of Cottage Paint,) she stressed that painting the cleaner on with a brush rather than spraying it on is the preferred method. Applying it with a brush means there won't be any over spray or missed areas and ensures that a really nice layer gets onto your surface. Let the cleaner sit on your surface for 1 minute, then wipe off with a clean rag. Cottage Paint Cleaner will take off old layers of wax, which is cool! Once your piece has been cleaned and wiped down, the Cottage Paint website suggests letting the piece sit over night to dry completely.
The next day, fill any scratches or dents with spackle compound and sand them flat when dry. (Spackle compound is recommended over wood filler as it does not contain oils which can discolour your paint.) You can also lightly sand your piece with 220g sand paper before priming and painting and wipe all dust off with a cloth. You may also choose to spot prime with Cottage Paint Clear Primer on any areas you think may need it, or on the entire piece if you think you may get bleed through.
Step Two: Paint Your Furniture.
For this project, I am using a set of nightstands that will be going in my bed room, and they will be painted White with Evening Sky grey stripes. I did 2 to 3 coats of White to cover the previous off white paint. I allowed the paint to dry for 24 to 48 hours as I didn't want the transfer process to remove any of the fresh paint. (There is a lot of rubbing when doing transfers so you want to make sure your paint is really dry!)
Step Three: Print and Prep Your Transfer.
I wanted to use a colour transfer for these nightstands, so I printed a colour image using a laser printer. (The Cottage Paint website says to use a colour laser printer and not an inkjet printer.) BE SURE TO PRINT YOUR IMAGE IN REVERSE!!! If you don't print your image in reverse, it will be backwards when you are done. You can cut out your image so you aren't using as much gel medium on paper that is just going to get rubbed off in the end - I usually cut my transfers. Before applying the gel, you may want to flip the image face down onto your piece and figure out where you want it to be once you have the gel on it. (You can mark lightly where you want the image to be if you want.)
Step 4: Choose and Apply the Proper Transfer Medium.
Cottage Paint has two different image transfer mediums - an oil and a gel. The oil is for black and white images and the gel is for coloured images. I will do another blog tutorial (and video tutorial on my Face Book page) on the oil transfer method, but for today, we are working with the gel, since the image is colour.
Set your transfer image, face up on a surface that you don't mind getting some transfer gel on such as scrap paper (or a pizza box in my case,) and apply a generous layer of gel on the transfer with a brush.
Step 5: Lay Your Image Down.
Lay your image FACE DOWN onto your painted surface in the spot where you previously decided to put it. You can move it around a little bit if you didn't get it in exactly the right spot, but try to get it as close as possible so you can avoid getting gel everywhere.
Step 6: Smooth Out Bubbles and Wrinkles.
Use an old credit card or an old gift card to smooth out any bubbles and wrinkles. You want your image to be fully adhered and smooth. Use firm pressure but not so hard that you rip through the image - remember, there is gel on the other side of the image which weakens the paper a bit, so if you push too hard, you may tear through the paper. Smooth the card from the center, outwards to the edges, over the entire image until there are no more bubbles or wrinkles.
You can use a paper towel to wipe up any excess gel that squeezed out from the edges while you were smoothing your image down.
Step 7: Wait 24 Hours.
Read a book, watch a movie or two, go to bed, you get the idea - just wait 24 hours before touching the transfer again.
Step 8: Wet the Image.
Use a damp cloth (or paper towel) to wet the image. You don't need the cloth to be sopping, but it needs to be able to soak through the paper, making it damp enough to rub off.
Step 9: Start Rubbing.
Use gentle but firm pressure to rub the paper off of the image. You will start to get little rolls and bits of paper coming up. (You can see the image darken through the paper when it's wet enough to begin rubbing.) Don't rub too hard or you can rub some of the image right off the furniture.
You may have to re-wet your surface and rub a few times. In the two photos below you will see an example of a light "haze" where there is still a thin layer of paper fibres on spots of the image and then the same spots when all of the paper has been rubbed off.
When you think you are finished, give your paper one more wipe with the wet cloth and a final rub. You will be surprised at how much more paper comes off!
Step 10: Distressing (Optional)
This step is optional. If you want a clear, crisp image, skip this step and move onto the next step.
If you want a more worn, vintage look, use 220g sand paper to distress the image to your liking. You can use a damp paper towel to remove the sanding dust from your surface.
Step 11: Seal.
When you are finished rubbing and distressing your image (if you chose to distress,) then you are finally ready to seal it. Cottage Paint has many different options for sealing. If the surface isn't going to be a high traffic one, you can use their Bee's Wax or their acrylic wax. If you are expecting the surface may get more traffic, their varnish may be a better option. Which ever sealer you choose, be sure to give the pieces 21 to 28 days to fully cure after sealing before regular use.
So there it is! A step by step tutorial on how you use Cottage Paint Transfer Gel for a colour image transfer onto a painted surface. As I mentioned at the beginning of this post, I plan to do a video tutorial as well and once that's done, I will post that up to my Face Book page.
I hope this has been helpful.
Have you tried using Transfer Gel by Cottage Paint on a project? I'd love to see photos!!
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