16 Creative Graphic and Photo Transfer Techniques for Any Project

hi Deidre here from our upcycled life if you're a fan of graphic transfers like I am you don't want to miss this Mega video I've put together 16 amazing graphic and photo transfer methods that are going to take your DIY projects to the next level in this video I'm going to show you transfer methods from packing tape to wax paper and beyond plus I'm going to show you how you can achieve successful transfers using your inkjet printer so with so many options to choose from you're sure to find the perfect transfer method for your next project okay get ready to take your DIY game to the next level we got lots of work let's get started I'm going to show you how you can do a packing tape transfer this is so cool and it's great for altered our junk journaling um decoupaging and all you're going to need is some packing tape and I have a few different things that I'm going to show you that you can use when doing this technique I have an old page from a book a napkin I have some clippings out of a magazine scrapbook paper and then I just have a printed picture also the first one that I'm going to show you is just out of a magazine these are just words and quotes that I've cut out of a regular magazine that I had at the house and you're just going to take your packing tape and cut a length I'm going to use two on this one because we have lots of room and just stick them on there and then you want to take a credit card and just press it really well with the credit card once you have that tape pressed right into that magazine page you can trim off the extra tape and now let's do the next quote this is just regular packing tape you can pick up packing tape at the dollar store at your hardware store and I haven't found it's made that much of a difference with the quality just as long as it's packing tape and you want to really press it right into that magazine page now I have a dish of warm water and you're just going to set them in the warm water for about 30 40 seconds and then you take them out of the warm water and this is where the magic comes in and I actually have no idea how it works obviously it's something to do with the toner in the paper sticking to the packing tape and the paper rubbing off I don't know the chemistry of it but it just works and it's fabulous you just rub off the paper and as you can see you're left with the graphics on that packing tape now sometimes your packing tape will stay sticky and you can use it like a sticker and sometimes you can't get the stickiness back I think it kind of depends on the tape that you're using but you can always add some glue stick or some mod podge and decoupage it onto your project if you don't get the stickiness back but look how fabulous and how easy this is to rub the paper off and you're now left with a clear transfer and this will work with photos out of a magazine also so you can just imagine what you can use to create these graph transfers now the only thing that you are limited to is to the size of your tape but if you want to make a bigger image you can always put your tape side by side I have a piece of coffee stained paper that I made and I'm just going to show you how this shows through after you've done this graphic transfer it looks great and you can see the paper underneath it you don't have that white background anymore and you can add it into your junk journaling Pages now this was a napkin I took it down to one ply and added the tape onto it soaked it in the water for about 30 seconds and you can see how this works for napkins also so if you have napkins with beautiful prints on them or words you can add the packing tape and do this technique you might find with napkins when you're rubbing off the backing that some of the ink might come off too but that's okay because you'll have the majority of the colors stay on the napkin and as you can see look it's transparent and when we put it up against that coffee stained paper look how gorgeous that is now I had an old antique book that the pages were all falling out that I used for some of my scrapbooking and my junk journaling and I'm going to show you how this transferred method also works on book pages gonna press that packing tape right into the area that you want it to transfer onto press it really hard put it in the warm water for about 30 seconds and then rub away now this had the text on the back also so we're rubbing off that we're only going to have the text from the front side of the paper transfer on as you can see and I love this I love incorporating old book pages into my crafts and this is a fantastic way to do that and you can see when you put it on that coffee stained paper it's transparent and you can see right through now I'm going to show you how you can do it with scrapbooking paper scrapbooking paper is really thick and if you want to use just a thin piece of scrapbooking paper this is a great way to do that get out your tape press it in really hard I'm going to cut that area out of the Scrapbook piece of paper put it in some warm water and then rub away the backing and as you rub away the backing you're going to have the design on the front of the scrapbooking paper stay on this packing tape and it's going to be nice and thin and you can put it on a page or you can decoupage it onto something and you put it on this piece of paper makes it transparent now I'm going to show you how you can use this method with a printed photo I grabbed this photo from the graphic fairy she has fantastic photos there they're all free I'll put a link down below to her website and you can check that out I've printed this off on my LaserJet printer now you cannot use an inkjet printer when doing this technique it will only work with a LaserJet printer it's sat in the warm water for about 30 seconds we're going to rub off the paper off the back and we are left with a beautiful photo on that packing tape and it's going to be translucent so whatever you put behind it will show through in the lighter parts of the photo this is going to look beautiful on top of a book page as you put it down on the book page you can see the lettering show through some of the photo and you can imagine what you can do with this in your junk journaling pages and this is what it looks like on top of the coffee stained paper so I'm sure you all have some packing tape laying around that you can try this technique out with grab a napkin get a book page get a magazine that you've got laying around your house or you can print off a photo if you've got a LaserJet printer and give this a try and start crafting if you've been following along my channel for quite a while you know that I'm obsessed with trying to figure out different methods and different ways to do photo or graphic transfers for our DIY projects I've done Mod Podge I've done poly acrylic I've done packing tape and so many different ways that you can integrate those transfers into any type of project but this one blew my mind I cannot believe that I haven't tried this before or figured out how to do this because this is absolutely unbelievably so easy and it works fantastic so what we're going to need is we're going to need CD labels packing labels mailing labels I always look for these at the thrift store I picked a whole pack of these up for 2.99 they're really cheap if you can't find them in the thrift store you can always find them at the dollar store or your stationery store but it's nice when you can find them cheaper and you're just going to peel off I always save these turn them into tags but you want that shiny paper underneath for this project you're also going to need to look for page protector I picked this up at the dollar store it's for books and maps and documents and it just protects the sheet after you've printed it off or you want to preserve it but this is also the same as transfer tape or shelf liner anything that you can find that has a sticky back and it's clear that we can do this method on well work now I've done a technique similar to this with packing tape but after we put the packing tape onto the paper we had to soak it in some warm water and then rub off the paper on the back with this technique you don't need to and I kind of stumbled across this I have no idea how I never really thought about this before um and I'm sure somebody has probably already done it and maybe you've already seen it done before but I was fascinated with how easy it worked and how I can incorporate this into a lot of my DIY projects so let's get started the next thing we're going to do is cut out a piece of the page for tractor the same size as the label sheet now we're going to take our label sheet and what the shiny side we're going to print directly on that now unfortunately it doesn't work well with an inkjet printer I've tried and it's really fussy it doesn't work that well if you only have an inkjet printer it's worth a try but I always revert it back to my LaserJet printer and had really good results with it so I'm going to pick out one of my Graphics to fit inside of this Frame and size it on this sheet and put it through my LaserJet printer I've got this printed off on my LaserJet printer I love this graphic I designed it and it's in my Etsy store if you want to grab this graphic after and use it for one of your projects now what we're going to do is we're going to take the shelf liner and I found the corner and what we want to do you want to make sure that you're not touching this as much as possible because we don't want to smear the ink but I'm going to bring the top of that sheet protector and put it right at the top of that label sheet and making sure that it's pressed down really well and you want to go really slow I've got a credit card and I'm just going to just press it into that print pulling back the backing of the paper as we go really pressing it down really hard and don't lift up that top layer don't lift this up and reposition it once it's down it has to stay where it is so make sure you have it lined up really well and we're just going to keep pressing it down until we get to the bottom of the print and then I'm just going to take that credit card and really press it really hard right into that print now I've got my picture frame I'm going to take out the glass I'm going to take my frame out to my shed and give it a really nice rustic paint job but right now what we're going to be working on is just this gloss I'm going to clean it up with some Windex so it's nice and clean I cleaned the glass with some Windex and now I've got an alcohol wipe and I'm just going to really wipe down that glass so there's no fingerprints and there's no grease or anything left on it that it's nice and clean now I've put the paper underneath the glass and I want to cut it so it's all the same width along the frame so I'm just scoring it and then I'm going to cut it with my scissors now comes the magic part unbelievable we're going to peel away and look at the image is staying on that sticky paper and peeling it right off that label sheet isn't this amazing and it's game changer for so many projects it's clean it's crisp it's unbelievable I am so excited that I was stumbled across this technique so we've peeled this all off as you can see there's hardly any ink left on that label sheet and now we have a sticky piece of paper transparent with our graphic that we can place on our glass and if you don't get it exactly where it needs to be it's stuck to that sticker tape so you can rearrange it if you need to it's a little bit fiddly to get it exactly where we want it but that looks pretty good right there isn't that unbelievable and the nice thing about this now is you can put a fabric behind it you can put a patterned um scrapbooking paper you can just leave it with nothing behind it put the glass back in the frame and let the color of the wall show through so many possibilities once I have it exactly where I want it then I go in with my credit card and press it right down into that and get any air bubbles or any little wrinkles that might be in it and press it firmly right into the glass and now I'm going to do a couple more I've done a photo and I've done another quote now my LaserJet printer isn't a color LaserJet but if you have one it'll also work with that too so I actually just a scrap piece of the vinyl from the piece that I cut out so you can use up your smaller pieces we're going to cut it to the size and then place it onto the graphics now I've peeled this one off I'm going to center it right on the graphic use my card to get all the bubbles and all the wrinkles out and then I'm also going to do this one too peel it off the backing Center it right over the photo making sure I got it nice and flat using the card pressing all the bubbles and wrinkles out of it and here comes the magic the incredible now if you peel it off and you're seeing that because there's a lot of Ink on this photo if you're finding that there's a lot that's still left on the paper gently put it back down and just take your card and really rub it in we want to get that ink transferred to that tape really well I think I've got this one rubbed really well I'm just going to put it on this gloss jar that I got out of my recycling bin and as you can see it's peeling off that image is staying right on that page protector and then you can take your sticker and put it right on your glass now I've got a little bit on the edges that I probably should have cut off and then I'm going to get my glass jar and put my photo on my glass jar and how fun is that finding that it's not sticking very well it could be just that you have a lot of toner on that page protector and the stickiness has gone a little bit you can put a little bit of um glue stick or a little bit of mod podge underneath it or a spray adhesive and then stick it to your glass if you're finding that it's not sticking very well but mine is is sticking really good and now we're gonna peel this one off transferred really well I'm going to trim around the edges and we're going to put it on that square base this is just a square base I think it I picked it up at a thrift store for 50 cents and I can just Center that quote right where I want it it's still really sticky rub out all of the little Bubbles and wrinkles and you've got a personalized glass base so there is an incredibly easy image transfer that you can do in a minute and add to your DIY projects I added some burlap into the back of this Frame gave it some chippy paint and I love the way that it turned out and the nice thing is you can peel this off and add a different image when you're tired of that one and I love the way we can incorporate this transfer method onto clear glass something that I've struggled with for a long time to be able to perfect a method that works well I would love to know down in the comments if you've ever tried this technique and if not give it a try and let me know how you make out today I'm going to show you a transfer method using sandwich bags or freezer bags when you're buying them make sure you have the type that don't have the label on them I've done photo and graphic transfers with packing tape with Mod Podge with polyacrylic there's so many different methods but I was for some reason this came into my mind the other day how about we give this a try and see if we can do a graphic transfer with a plastic baggie did some testing you will not believe the results you're going to need a towel to protect your table and parchment paper the first transfer that we're going to do is with this graphic I designed this it's in my Etsy store if you want to grab it and try this project out for yourself when you've finished watching this video and we're going to use the big sandwich bag or the freezer bag you want to cut off the top Zippy part we don't need that for the transfer and then we're going to cut the bag open so it's one big sheet of plastic now we're going to cut the plastic so it's just a little bit bigger than that sheet of paper now this technique will only work with a LaserJet printer it will not work with an inkjet printer so if you don't have a laser jet printer you can always go to your local Staples or stationery store and have them do copies for you we've got our piece of parchment paper our printed laser jet printer and I'm laying the plastic right on top of that with plastic hanging off both ends and then we're going to put the parchment paper on top and then we're going to iron it I'm using I just have a craft iron in my craft room that's all I use it for I have it on the highest setting and you don't want any Steam and you just want to take your time and just to melt that plastic into that piece of paper it'll take a few passes to get it completely melted you want to make sure that it's adhered really well on the ends and in the corners I've let it cool down and we're going to peel away the parchment paper and we have our Graphics covered with the plastic baggie now I don't find one layer of the plastic is enough so I always like to put on a second layer I've cut that baggie in half so we're going to use that other half to put on another layer on top of the graphics it's all cooled down you're going to pull away the parchment paper and we have two layers of melted sandwich bags for freezer bags on our Graphics now I'm going to cut out each of the graphics now you want to make sure that you have it adhered really well and double check it as I was trimming these I noticed that this was not sealed very well so I'm going to go back and I'm going to iron it again and then double check and make sure that it's all sealed properly because if it isn't we won't get a proper transfer I've got them all cut out now they do have a tendency to roll up that's not a problem it's not going to affect when we're all finished with it so the next thing we want to do is we want to have a dish of warm water we're just going to set it in the water and just leave it for about 30 seconds it's been 30 seconds and the paper has really gotten soaked and we're just going to just rub the paper off the back you want to go really slow you don't want to go too hard and the paper will just roll up underneath your fingers and leave the graphic on that sandwich bag just go really slow if you go too fast you're going to rub off that transfer so just take your time [Music] and I have the paper rubbed off and you can see how it's transparent and I'm going to trim around the edges to make it look nice and neat but when you put it on I've got a coffee stained mat you can see the map through it so many possibilities with this and I also like this technique also as an alternative to the packing tape transfer because the packing tape transfer is really glossy where this has a bit more of a matte finish to it and some of your projects you might not want that glossy finish so this will replace the packing tape and it is so cool and so magical I'm going to finish off the other ones from that sheet show you what they look like [Music] thank you I've got all the paper off now this does leave a bit of a haze as you can see it's not going to be completely transparent but it's still really cool flexible you can't rip it it's very durable perfect for Junk journaling scrapbooking um any type of DIY project and what I like to do with it now is I'll use my glue stick just put some glue on the back of it and you can glue it onto your project I've got my map here and you can just lay it wherever you want and glue it down next I'm going to show you how you can do it with a page out of an old book this book was falling apart I've been using it for my crafting and I've just ripped out one of the sheets and we're going to use this sandwich bag we're going to put down our parchment paper I've got my little piece from the book I've cut the top off the sandwich bag we now have two layers here when you're using the thicker the freezer bags they're thicker and I these ones are thinner so you can iron these two together the thicker ones I like to do in two steps do the first layer and then the second layer we're going to cut this down a little bit so it's not so big and then we'll be ready to iron it together we're going to put the top layer of the parchment paper on top get our iron that's on the highest setting with no Steam and then melt that plastic right into that page from that book we've got our little dish of water and our paper that's got the plastic on the top set it in there and let it sit for about 30 seconds and we're ready to rub off the back now this page had words on the front and the back so this is just going to rub off the words from the back and we're going to be left with the words on the front this will also work with magazines it will work on scrapbooking paper napkins you just have to just experiment and just try different things and see what works and the book page is all finished and you can see how it's transparent on top of that scrapbooking paper now where there was a few holes in it probably where the plastic kind of melted away that's why it's so important to have two layers because it's just not thick enough this one probably could have almost had three layers of plastic but it still kind of gives it character and I love it I printed this photo off of the graphic fairy on my LaserJet printer and I'm going to show you how it's going to transfer with a sandwich bag foreign [Music] [Music] all done you can see it's a little bit hazy it's hard to kind of rub off all of it and when I put it down on some brown tissue paper how beautiful is that I'm also going to show you how it will work on a piece of scrapbooking paper I had some of the freezer bag left over and that's what I'm going to use for this one so I'm going to put on this layer and then we'll put on the second layer [Music] and I have the scrapbook paper all done also you can see how it's kind of transparent pattern of the paper and look when you put it on some glass you could make a big sheet of this with a freezer bag wrap it on a glass bottle put a candle in it it'd be just gorgeous so there's another technique to add into your crafting to-do list I had a lot of fun experimenting and testing with this technique and I hope you will too [Music] I'm going to do this technique on a frame that I picked up at the thrift store I've distressed the frame I use the candle wax technique to um distress this if you've never tried that out it's really simple easy way to take um a frame and make it look old and Chippy and vintage I'll put the link below in the description so you can check that out but I'm going to take out the middle part and that's what we're going to do the transfer on and to do this you're going to need some address label sheets or these are these CD label sheets I always find them at the thrift store they're really reasonable but what you want is you want to carry your sheet to print on you want to use this one and then peel off the labels and you want that shiny sheet that's underneath and I don't like to waste these I'm going to show you what I'm going to do with those before we start I have a sheet of scrapbooking paper and I'm going to take these labels and I'm going to put them on the back side and then it's gonna take that scrapbook paper make it a little bit thicker and they make fantastic gift tags and there you have perfect little hand tags to use on your gifts and you haven't wasted the labels okay so here's the carrier sheet and we the next step we want to work on the shiny side of this sheet and what we're going to do next is you're going to take your Mod Podge matte or gloss but I prefer to use the mat and you're going to put a coat all over the shiny side of that paper and you want to take it right to the ends and you try and get it as even as you can you don't want it lumpy in some spots and thinner in others you want to coat it really well and you'll notice that it might bubble up a little bit but that's okay um it'll all work in the end we're just gonna cover it completely I probably should have put something under my work area here but that's not how I roll I'll do everything the hard way so I have a mess to clean up after okay so we're gonna let that sit and dry completely okay that first coat has dried really well and now we're gonna go on and put on an even thicker coat you want it really quite thick because you're trying to make a skin on that carrier sheet so I'm going to put it on really thick and then I'm going to take a um a credit card or an old card once I get this on really thick and I'm gonna smooth it out so then I'm just going to take the card and because you don't want any lumps or you just want a nice smooth surface so you're just going to take the card and just run it along and make sure you don't have any brush marks and then we're going to let that sift and completely dry okay this is completely dry and this is key to this uh type of transfer it has to be completely dry if you try to put this through your printer when it's still wet you are going to gum up your printer and you're going to wreck it so make sure it's really really dry you also want to make sure that you have it covered enough so you don't have any of that glossy paper showing through it has to be quite a thick coat of mod podge on this um carrier paper now we're ready to put it in the printer you want to make sure that you're loading your paper in the right way so it prints on that Mod Podge so you're just going to load it into your inch up and get ready to print so we're just going to let this sit and dry for a few minutes you want the ink not to rub off and it's still a bit damp so we're just going to let it dry really well okay so the picture that I printed out was just from one of our camping trips my husband and I like to do lots of Adventures so I always have lots of photos and I love to frame them but here comes the magic part this just peels right off of that carrier sheet how cool is that and then you have your photo that you can put onto your project now the one thing that you could should think about is this is see-through so whatever is in the background is going to show through your photo so if you have this painted with a dark color it's not going to look as nice with your photos but this looks really nice on the black on the white background so now all I'm going to do is I'm just going to trim the edges now we're ready to attach this to our project the way that I like to do it the best is to put a light coat of The Mod Podge on a piece of wood and then apply the photo on top of that I've got it all covered with the mod podge and I'm just going to Center my photo exactly in the middle and then press it right down now you can leave it as this and just make sure you press it down really really well but I like to do an another step just to ensure that it's going to stick really well um I like to take a piece of parchment paper and then I've got my iron sat on high with no Steam and I just like to run it across just to melt some of that Mod Podge just a little bit I didn't make it adhere really well to the wood give it a really light iron let it cool and I have a fantastic inkjet transfer photo but one step further if you want this already now has obviously the Mod Podge right on the top it has a top coat but you can also seal it a little bit more with your poly acrylic water-based sealer and satin if you think you want to have a little bit more of a coverage on your picture I'm just going to take a little bit of the poly acrylic and just go right over the top no bubbles no wrinkles sealed in beautifully onto that wood with an inkjet you don't need to worry about any running or smearing this transfer technique is game changer so all of my YouTube friends that don't have a laser jet printer and struggle to do photo and graphic transfers you need to try this out okay I'm starting with two pieces of pine I've chalk painted them with my homemade chalk paint recipe and I printed off two Graphics one from my laser jet and one from my inkjet I'm just gonna cut them out and put them on the sign to size them up before I Mod Podge them onto the wood so this is the graphic printed off the inkjet printer [Music] and this is the graphic that's printed off on my LaserJet printer [Music] it's probably the most common question that I get asked when I'm making my Graphics this way is why can't I use an inkjet printer I don't have a LaserJet printer can I try it with my inkjet and today I'm going to show you the difference between using the two printers so you'll know how it turns out in the end and whether you want to do it with either printer the first thing that I've noticed is how much brighter and darker my LaserJet printed graphic is than my inkjet graphic [Music] okay now we're ready to put them on the wood I'm using this DecoArt decoupage um it's just like Modge Podge same thing I'll put a link below in the description on Amazon and you're just going to take a paintbrush and just put a light coat all over the whole Graphics I'm just doing the LaserJet printer one now and I'm going to spread it all over and then press it down firmly on the wood and take out all the air bubbles and the little wrinkles foreign [Music] [Music] and now we're ready to put on the inkjet I'm going to do the same thing a light coat all over the whole graphic and then press it down on the piece of wood and get out all the wrinkles and all the little air bubbles foreign [Music] thank you okay all set this is for inkjet and this one's the laserjack so let's let them sit and see what happens [Music] okay I've let them dry overnight and I'm going to do the LaserJet one first so I'm just going to take a damp Rag and rub it all over the graphics until you can just start to see them coming through you don't want to get them too wet otherwise you will rub the graphics right off it's kind of take a little bit of practice and patience but just wet it so you can just see it and then rub all the paper away thank you [Music] this is a LaserJet printer Graphics all finished okay now we're going to start the graphics from the inkjet printer same technique you're going to just dampen it with a wet rag until you can see the graphics come through and then you're going to rub off all of the paper [Music] what I'm starting to notice right away is the ink is actually rubbing off with the paper it's kind of making black smudges it's not horrible it's not completely coming off but it's not as clean and crisp as with the laser jet so I'm just going to keep rubbing it off and we'll see what else happens all right [Music] I'm also finding it's a bit more sticky than the laser printer it almost kind of has a gummy feel when I'm rubbing off the paper which I didn't have with the LaserJet printer and that might be a little bit of a problem also but so far it's not horrible foreign [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] this one is the inkjet and you can see how the ink is kind of smudged and it's kind of rubbed off in some places and it just isn't crisp and clean and this is the laser jet so here's my thoughts if you're just gonna do one or two signs at home I would definitely just use an inkjet and don't invest in a LaserJet printer um it actually is not that bad and it looks not too shabby um if you're doing it professionally for a Etsy store or you're selling your sign I would probably go and buy a laser jet printer just because it's more clean and crisp looking but this uh the inkjet is actually not too bad [Music] thank you [Music] I'm going to show you how you can make a sign without any stencils or Cricut or even Mod Podge you know I love my Mod Podge reverse graphic transfer method to make signs but this one is super simple and super easy I got some carbon paper off of Amazon and it came with a whole bunch of sheets of black and white transfer paper and these little burnishing tools and I also picked up some paint pens that I'm going to try now I haven't tried any of this so this is going to all kind of be just a first time process I think it's going to be pretty easy and if it is it's a great way for you to make signs really affordable the first thing I did was I picked what I wanted to put on my sign this is just a piece of old Driftwood that I had and I printed off welcome and I sized it to fit my project um and we are going to use a piece of the carbon paper I'm going to use a piece of the black to transfer the lettering onto the piece of wood I've cut the carbon paper to the size that I wanted on the wood now I don't want it to move around very much so I've got a little bit of packing tape and I'm just going to kind of just make sure it stays in one spot and tape it onto that so it doesn't move around and then I've got my graphic and I'm going to do the same thing I'm going to put it exactly where I want it and then I'm going to tape it on top you're going to move it move it down a little bit and then I'm going to tape it right on top of that carbon paper so it doesn't move around and we're ready to start tracing the letters onto the wood now you can use um a toothpick or something that's got a sharp end on it but you want to be able to burnish that carbon paper right onto the wood so when you go to paint it afterwards you can see where you need to paint and you just want to take your time you don't want to go outside the lines so you can have a nice crisp graphic when you're finished so I'm just going to work away at this [Music] okay I have it all traced and you can take this up really carefully and you can have a look and see if you've missed any spots and it's transferred really well so now I can see I don't know if you can see very well but now you can see where you need to paint all the letters now I'm going to paint with one of these paint pens I love these you can get them in different um tips and colors and I'll put a link below down in the description for these too because they're really great to craft with so now I'm just going to use my paint pen and just paint all around those lines that I traced and fill it all in and I don't care if it's completely perfect because this is going to be a really rustic sign so just take your time if you're using these and just trace it out first and then we'll fill it all in with um the paint pen afterwards I have it all traced out now and we're ready to fill it in with a paint pen and now this is on raw wood so it's a little bit harder to see what you've traced out if you're doing this on a white painted surface and then doing the carbon transfer it would show out a lot up a lot more and you would be able to see the lines when you're tracing but um this worked out really well foreign [Music] I've got it completely done and it takes a little bit to dry the paint pen to dry not very long though it's quick drying so I'm going to set it aside and when it's dry I'm going to make it nice and rustic and finish off this sign I've got a sanding block and I'm just going to sand right over those letters that I painted so it looks really weathered and old looking and not perfect and I'm going to seal it up with some poly acrylic water-based sealer just put a a good coat over the whole piece and if you want to make a sign like this and keep it outside then I would recommend using a outdoor poly acrylic sealer and now I'm just going to drill a couple holes in the top to hang some jute string through I've had these in my stash for a long time they're little bells I think they might have came on a dollar store sign maybe and I took them off and set them aside and I'm gonna put them along the bottom of the sign and I think I'll finish it off perfect [Music] I'm just finishing this up and I remembered I had some beads left over from a DIY I did on how to paint beads quickly fantastic tutorial if you haven't seen it you need to go back and check it out I'll put a link Down Below in my description for it but I thought these colored beads kind of fit that Vibe really well for the sign so I'm going to add them onto this piece of hanging jute so you can see how easy it is to create signs using this transfer carbon paper and if you are kind of intimidated by all the rest of the Sign Making processes this one's for you I'll put a link Down Below in the description so you can grab some carbon paper if you don't have any and the kit with the burnished um tools is fantastic to use and the paint pens are so easy to be more precise when you're tracing all of those letters in and this is what we're going to use to transfer our Graphics or photos onto the wood mailing labels and I picked these up at the dollar store and I just had these scrap pieces of wood so that's what I'm going to show you today on how to do this technique these are just the mailing labels that have a whole bunch of little labels on them and you don't actually want the labels you want the paper underneath and you can also pick these up at an office supply store or at Staples and the first thing you want to do is peel off all of those labels because you want that paper underneath okay now we have all the labels off I'm going to use my Crafters tape and just put a little bit along the edges of a piece of computer paper to hold that label paper in place because if you just put the label paper through your computer sometimes it can get jammed up so you want to put the shiny side up the shiny side is what you want to print your graphics or your photo on and you want to make sure it's laying nice and smooth with no wrinkles now this project can only be done on a LaserJet printer it will not work on an inkjet printer so when you're putting your paper into your printer you want the shiny side down because then it'll print on the right side when it comes out and this is the graphic that I printed for this project make sure to reverse your text or it'll be backwards now I'm going to paint this piece of wood with some acrylic paint now I've cut the graphic out of the piece of paper and you don't want to touch any of the ink it will smudge really easy now we're waiting for the painted piece of wood to dry I'm going to show you how you can transfer it right onto just raw wood you're going to put your transfer face down on the piece of wood and then you're going to put a piece of parchment paper on top and then we're going to use the iron set at the highest setting on six with no Steam and we're just going to iron away and as we iron the ink from the LaserJet printer will transfer onto the wood and it'll stay on the wood and looks beautiful and it takes a little bit of ironing you want to press down and make sure you get every corner and make sure that your graphic underneath does not slide around you want to make sure it stays right in place and you can always really carefully it's hot so be careful just lift up a corner and see how it's transferring and you'll know whether you need to iron it a little bit more and like I said before this will only work on a LaserJet printer it will not work on an inkjet printer the inkjet printer ink just smears all over the paper you have to have the laser jet that has the special ink that works for this project and as I slowly pull away that label paper you can see that the ink is actually starting to bond into the wood and I'm going to iron it just a little bit more okay and now we're ready to pull that label paper off and as you can see as I'm peeling it it's revealing that whole graphic now sometimes it all doesn't iron off sometimes but I kind of like the look of that it kind of gives it a nice rustic worn look okay and now I'm going to do the transfer on the acrylic paint okay now we're going to do the same technique that we did on the raw wood make sure you don't touch the graphics and Center them right where you want them on the board get your piece of parchment paper hold it down firmly and then you're going to take your iron and make sure the graphic underneath doesn't slide around setting six no Steam and iron away try this technique on a couple pieces of scrap wood before you do a big project just so you get The Knack of how it transfers to your wood now I'm just going to pull up a corner and make sure that it's transferring really well and there's still a little bit so I'm going to try with the iron a bit more and see if I can get a bit more of that ink off of it onto the wood if you are using this technique on wood you want to make sure that your wood is smooth it won't work on anything that has a lot of texture and now we're ready to peel off that label paper and reveal the graphic and look how great that turned out it actually is better on a painted surface it really transferred well onto the acrylic paint and here's the two pieces finish this one with the acrylic paint underneath and this one just on the raw wood now I've drilled two holes through the top of it to put a little piece of twine through it and I'm going to seal it with my water-based matte finished verithane and there you have a Graphic transfer using mailing label sheets and it's such a cool technique and I hope I've inspired you to try to do it yourself and this is what I'm going to use for this technique I picked up this burlap it was 3.99 and I picked up a pillowcase I like picking up pillowcases for just the fabric uh this one was 1.49 and I think the blue tag is 25 off so I'm going to cut that one up and use it and I'm going to show you how to do graphics on a fabric using mailing sheet labels this is so cool so hang tight I'm going to add a graphic fabric graphic on the front of this basket that I picked up at the thrift store and I have this Frame and I'm going to use a burlap and put a beautiful quote on it in the middle of this I'm going to work on the picture frame first so I have to see what size of burlap I want in this frame on the inside is nine by twelve um and I want the burlap a little bit smaller so I think I'm going to cut it about seven and a half by 10. I want the edges to have this frayed look like this so I'm just going to this is actually my little Cricut tool and I'm just going to pull away Along the edges so I can have that frayed look on all sides I've got it all cut to size and now I'm just going to take my iron and just press it so it's nice and flat and I have both pieces ready to start the iron-on transfer I'm going to be using my Mod Podge mat you can use gloss just remember you're going to have a glossy finish or you can also use the fabric Mod Podge if you use a fabric then you'll be able to wash it in the washing machine but these aren't going to be washed so I'm just going to use my Mod Podge mat and you want to put a liberal coat over all of the fabric and put it right out to the edges so it doesn't Fray anymore and I have both pieces of fabric on a piece of parchment paper that way it won't stick to your table and you're protecting your work surface I've got them both completely coated with the Mod Podge gonna set them aside and let them dry completely these are both completely dried and now I'm going to put a second coat of The Mod Podge on them now this is the secret ingredient to do your transfer these are old CD labels um I found them at the thrift store for 2.99 they're the exact same thing as mailing labels what you actually want is you want the carrier sheet underneath you want that plastic sheet so you're going to take off all the labels and this is the sheet that you want underneath now you can find these sheets office supply store sometimes you can find them in the dollar store but I always always find them in the thrift store because people don't use the CD um labels anymore the mailing labels that much so check around and see where you can pick them up make sure when you're printing you're printing on the shiny side and feed it into your printer properly foreign [Music] I have the graphics all printed out I made sure that you reverse the text otherwise when you put it on your project it'll be backwards and this will only work on the LaserJet printer it will not work on an inkjet printer because of the different variations of ink so I've got the big one printed and then the other one you have to make sure that you don't touch the ink either that it because it will smear so we're just about ready to put it on our project okay these both have two coats of mod podge put on them completely dry now I have tried to do this technique just the way it is right now and do the iron-on transfer it will work sometimes but it wasn't 100 of the time what I do find works the best is if I just take another light coat of mod podge and put it on top and then iron on while this Mod Podge is still a little bit tacky the iron-on transfer works much better okay you want to put a towel down and then keep your parchment paper underneath this otherwise if you just put this on the towel and then you ironed it you're gonna have an iron to your towel so we've got just a light coat of The Mod Podge that's still wet it's still damp and we're going to lay that graphic right where we want it try not to touch the graphics exactly where you want it make sure it's centered really well and then you're going to take another piece of parchment paper and lay it on top and you're just going to iron on your graphic this is on the highest setting with no Steam and you're just going to take your iron and just slowly go up and down let that mod podge and that ink melt together now it may Sizzle a little bit because that Mod Podge is wet but that's okay it dries really quickly so you want to keep ironing back and forth until all of that Mod Podge is completely dry now you want to let it completely dry before you pull this off um and you can just lift it a little bit and see if it's transferring well and if it isn't fold it back down put the parchment paper back on top and then just give it another iron it might take a little bit to get all that ink transferred but you just can keep tracking and then when you feel that it's all transferred and you completely let it cool then you can pull off that top carrier paper it's important to make sure that you let it cool completely before you peel it off that way you're going to know that the transfer has all stuffed down so here it goes oh this is so cool and there you have it now you can see there was a little bit of ink that didn't transfer um down here but that's okay because I think it looks really rustic I and I love that look okay now we're ready to do this one same process we're going to put a little bit of mod podge on the top so it's wet and then we're going to lay the graphic on top of it make sure that it's centered exactly where you want it and then we're going to iron it okay now this is all pressed and cooled down really well and actually this method works really really well on a smooth cotton fabric it's a little bit more difficult on that burlap that I did to get it so you could see how some of it didn't transfer very well but on this type of prop um fabric it works fantastic so I'm just gonna slowly peel it away and you can see how there's no ink left it transferred really well and look at that I picked up this Frame at the thrift store paid a couple dollars for it and I then spray painted it black put it in my little uh to do corner and I think what I want to do is I wanted to stress it a little bit um and not make it such a flat black color so I'm going to go ahead and just sand along the hole outside of the frame okay and this is ready to put into the frame I am going to put some of my homemade Mod Podge on the back of it to glue it in and then I'm also going to use my hot glue gun a little bit um just in the corners to hold it in place while it dries and I'm going to do the same process to put it on the basket and there you have a really simple easy way to transfer your graphics or your photos this will even work with photos printed on your LaserJet printer onto those carrier sheets to create fantastic pieces of fabric to use on your crafting projects I have both of these Graphics in my Etsy store if you're interested in purchasing them make sure you use the code save 50 and you'll get 50 off all of the graphics in my store I've also just created a newsletter that's right full of tips and tricks and lots of DIY projects I'd love to have you follow along over there the link for that will be down in the description and it has a discount code for my Etsy store and some free graphics I'm gonna do my photo transfer on this wooden plate or this little plaque that I found at the thrift store was a dollar 49 and it's just a basic wood I like when I'm doing these transfers to paint them with a chalk paint first that seems to give me the best transfer so I am going to give this a coat of black chalk paint and then I'm going to paint it with two coats of white chalk paint and that will give it a really nice base for us to start our transfer the best result that I always have when doing these transfers is on Chalk Paint I've tried it with latex I've tried it with acrylic and I never have that great of a result as I do with chalk paint I think the chalk paint must be maybe a little bit more absorbent and soaking up those inks from the print and helping it transfer better I found when using a latex paint it did not work at all I found that it rubbed off really easy I'll put a link down in the description for my favorite homemade chalk paint recipe now we're ready to do the photo transfer this is just a photo that I took on one of our camping adventures and I just love the vibrant colors in it I printed it off on my basic inkjap printer it's not a fancy one was only like 40 or 50 dollars and um I've just printed it out now what I'd like to do is after I've printed out my photo I like to let it sit for about 10 or 15 minutes and let all the ink kind of dry and set into the paper this is just regular computer paper not photo paper that's what you want to use for this Mod Podge reverse transfer method using a ink Jack so the next thing I'm going to do is I'm going to get my Mod Podge mat and we're going to put it onto this wooden plaque I'm going to use my Mod Podge matte I find that has the best results I find with the glossy it doesn't rub off as well so I always stick to this one when I'm doing this type of transfer method when I'm applying the Mod Podge I like to apply it right to the photo um not the actual wood and that also has given me the best results I do a lot of these so I've learned all of this through trial and error so I hope all these little tips and tricks will help you out when you want to do some of your own transfers now I prefer to use an inkjet or a sorry a laser jet when I'm doing transfers it just gives more of a vibrant transfer I find when you're using the inkjet it is more of a dull finish after you've rubbed off all the paper but a lot of people don't have a laser printer so this is a really good option um and I actually have a comparison video that you I'll put a link Down Below in the description and up above right here where you can see where I did a LaserJet and an inkjet transfer side by side and you can see the difference in how it transfers I'm not cutting this down to size because I'll just sand off the edges when it's all finished foreign and now I've got it completely covered I've got a pretty good coat on it you don't want it too too thick you just want a nice thin layer over the whole picture and I'm just going to flip it over and Center it on my wooden plaque and you want to rub out all the wrinkles and all the bubbles make sure it's nice and flat and then once you have that done you're going to set it aside and not even think about it you want to let it sit overnight you need to have that really really dry and before you start to rub the paper off so I've got this all set I'm going to set it aside and we'll be back tomorrow one thing to remember when doing this type of a transfer is to reverse your photo if you don't your photo will be backwards when you put it onto your project and also it's really important to do if you're using Graphics because if you don't reverse your text when you put your graphics down when you rub off your paper your letters and your words are going to be backwards I have a video on how to do the reverse um Graphics in a word program I'll put a link again down below or up above here and you can check that out if you're not familiar with how to do that okay it's the next day this is completely dried and now we're ready to wet it and uh rub off the paper I just have a little dish of water and a rag and you just want you don't want to soak it you just want it wet enough so when you put it on you can just start to see the photo come through if you put too much water on you're going to lift up that photo so just enough just to see it through the um paper and then you're just gonna gently just gently rub away the paper until you expose the photo this takes a little bit of practice and a little bit of knack on how to do it but if you practice it's a really cool technique and it works really well I do find sometimes when I'm doing this type of a method of transfer with an inkjet you sometimes can rub off the ink it might lift it a little bit every printer is a little bit different this one seems to work really well so it's just kind of something that you just have to fool around with and try and see how it works for you but right now it's working perfect if you do find when you're rubbing away the paper it starts to dry out a little bit and you're getting a little bit of a white Haze you can see right here there's a little bit of a white haze just dip your finger into the water and just circular motions just work on that area and it should come off if you just take your time you don't want to rub too hard either that's another trick if you're rubbing too hard you're going to rub that photo and that transfer right off so just kind of work in small sections at a time just back and forth until all that cloudiness is gone and uh it will work perfect for you and like I said before if you have um a laser jet printer this transfer method works even better and you'll get more vibrant colors and it transfers a lot easier with with the rubbing off of the paper but as you can see this inkjet one is actually working really well for me today and um I would recommend if you don't have a laser jet print off on an inkjet on a plain piece of paper and give this technique a try with some of your favorite photos I've also had success doing this transfer method on a canvas on glass jars the only thing that I find works the best for me though is to make sure that you have a chalk painted base underneath any project that you're doing as soon as you try to do it on Plain glass or an unpainted Canvas OR unpainted wood the success rate is not very good I find you've got to have that chalk paint underneath and it just I think makes it a little bit more porous for that paper ink to soak into to do the transfer properly I'm just going to re-dampen it just gently just to get that last little bit of the cloudiness away I'm going to start in the top corner and you can feel the paper kind of ball up underneath your fingers and wipe away now the one thing that I do notice with an inkjet if you start rubbing too much you're going to start rubbing that ink off so just really gentle hands as you're rubbing and I think we're almost finished I think I have almost all the paper off of it and we'll be ready to seal it okay I think I'm finished I think I got almost all of the paper rubbed off I don't want to rub at it too much more because the ink was starting to rub off a little bit and I still want all those vibrant colors so if you do have a little tiny bit of that cloudiness left don't worry because when you put on your top sealer it's going to get rid of almost all of that so I think I'm just going to give it a good sanding around the edge and then it'll be ready for um its top coat I'm just going to go back in with my sanding block again and just kind of give it a a rough sanding around the edge just to kind of give it a rustic look and I think it's going to finish it off really nice I like the look of that [Music] okay we're ready to put the top coat on I am going to use the polyurethane water-based clear gloss finish you can choose whatever finish you like I just thought with this one I would like to use a gloss finish you can use the Mod Podge as a top coat but I prefer this over the Mod Podge I think this has a much nicer finished look than the Mod Podge but that's your preference also so I'm just going to put a coat over the entire picture and let it dry and like I said before if you do find you have a little few little spots that are a little bit cloudy still and you don't want to rub it anymore as soon as you put that top coat on it's more than likely just going to disappear and you won't see it anymore so I'm going to work on that and as you can see as I'm spreading this around it's bringing some of that vibrant color back from when you first printed off the picture and I've just finished that first coat of the polyurethane and it looks fantastic I'm going to let that first coat dry and then I'll put I think I'll put a second coat on and then it's going to be all finished the first coat is dry I'm going to take my sanding block just give it a real light fan in case there's any little air bubbles and then I'm going to put on my last coat to seal it and there you have your photo transfer using an inkjet printer and Mod Podge and it works fantastic so go through your photos pick out some of your favorite ones and give this technique a try we're doing wax paper graphic transfer really easy technique all you need is some wax paper it will only work on wax paper it won't work on parchment paper so make sure you have some wax paper you need a little credit card of some sort to burnish your graphic and I've cut a piece of the wax paper the exact size of a piece of paper so we can feed it through our printer and this is the graphic that I'm going to use now when you're doing your graphics for this technique you have to make sure that you reverse them so this is what it's going to look like when you have it printed out on your wax paper for the technique and for this process I am going to use this piece of wood and I think I might have picked it up at Michael's maybe just a piece of um thin wood and I've painted it with some white chalk paint to do the transfer on top of if you're interested after you've watched this tutorial in using this graphic it will be available in my Etsy store you can grab it and it already has a file that's already reversed so you don't have to worry about fooling around and trying to figure out how to reverse your own Graphics you can use it right away on your own computer when you're printing off on this wax paper you want to make sure when you feed it through your printer that you're printing on the glossy side the side that has the wax on it this only has wax on one side you'll see the other side is more of a paper and this is the waxy finish that's what you want to print on on your inkjet printer when you feed it through so you'll just have to see which way your printer feeds and make sure that that's the way that it prints out okay I had all print it off and I'm gonna let it sit for about 30 seconds before I apply it onto my project you want the ink to just kind of dry just a little tiny bit not very much and this is this technique is a little bit tricky it might take a couple times to get it proper um you can kind of see see how my ink kind of bubbled up a little bit there that might transfer off onto the sign but we can always fix it with a paint pen if it uh if it doesn't turn out perfect so I'm just going to let it sit for about 30 seconds okay it's been 30 seconds and now I'm gonna really careful now don't touch these letters because it the ink is just sitting on top of this wax paper if you touch it with your finger you're going to wipe that ink right off so you have to be really really careful where you're placing it and once you place it down you can't move it so you have to make sure that you have it exactly where you want it when you place it on your project and you don't want it to wiggle around you want it right where you want it and I'm just going to press it down with my hands and then after you've done that that's where you're going to come in with your credit card or a burnishing tool or something that's got like a flat surface that you can press that right into your project and get that ink off of that wax paper so I'm just going to take a few seconds and get this pressed down properly and I have it all transferred it gives a real kind of rustic look it's not perfect but if you like that look it's it works really well and it can be a little bit finicky it took me a while to get the technique down and get it to work really good because the ink smears so easy and sometimes it can even run before you even put it down but it's a fun one to try it's not my favorite but you can put it in your to-do list to try it out and see if you like it I'm going to finish this one off I'm just going to put some twine jute to hang from it and we're all finished thank you foreign [Music] it's all finished and I'm happy with the way that it's turned out I've seen lots of people do this on lots of different surfaces you can do it on fabric on canvas on paper on wood um and you just kind of have to experiment with it and see how it works for you this is the frame that I picked up at the thrift store somebody had previously oil painted a pitcher and had a professionally framed and I picked it up for 2.99 I think they had used an oil paint on this so I'm going to take my sanding block it's an 80 grit and I'm going to sand off all the high little spots on the canvas so when I paint it it's nice and smooth now I'm going to take a wet cloth and wipe off all the dust and dirt and debris on the canvas and the frame now I'm going to tape off the wooden frame because I don't want to get any paint on it so I'm just using my painters tape to protect the wood and then I can paint the canvas I always like to prep my canvas I find if you don't put any paint on top of the canvas it's kind of slippery and especially if you're going to do a photo transfer or a graphic transfer it doesn't stick very well so all of my canvases I always put chalk paint on them and I find the chalk paint works best even over the latex for it to adhere the best I'll put a link below in the description for my chalk paint recipe I'm putting two coats of the black base coat on just so I can cover up that painting that was underneath it if you were just using a raw canvas you probably could stick skip this step and just put on the one top coat of chalk paint and after I have this last coat on I'm going to let it dry thoroughly and now we're ready to put on the white on top so this is my white chalk paint um and it's going to take two coats of the white chalk paint and I'm going to let it dry really well in between coats of that too foreign [Music] prepped and dry and ready for us to decoupage and to graphic transfer onto with Mod Podge and these are the napkins that I'm going to use I bought them at the dollar store and they're a beautiful floral pattern and I'm going to decoupage them onto the canvas so I'll show you the steps of how to do that the first thing you want to do is to make sure that you remove all of the Plies of the napkin you only want to have the top ply to decoupage onto the canvas wet your fingers a little bit when you're trying to pull the different Plies apart and it makes your job a little bit easier and don't throw away those other white Plies they're great for little messes and wipe UPS [Music] and of course this can be kind of fussy sometimes just take your time and be patient and they eventually will come apart and just try to when you're pulling them apart not to rip the napkin with the graphics on it [Music] now what I like to do when I'm going to decoupage is I don't like to use a scissors when I'm cutting out the little designs on the napkins I like to rip it that way you can blend it in better when you're putting it on the canvas so I just gently kind of rip around the actual part of the napkin that I want to put on to the canvas and I always make sure that you rip away the outside edge too because if not it will show a straight line on your um picture [Music] foreign as I rip away all of the flowers that I want on my canvas I'm going to place them um out where I want them and then they'll be ready to mod podge when I have them all set where I think they look the prettiest okay now the fun begins we're gonna get the mod podge I like to use the matte finish and we're going to decoupage these flowers down on this canvas okay you want to use a really thin layer of the Mod Podge just enough to stick that napkin down if you put too much on the canvas it'll wrinkle up and it'll bubble so just a really light light coat I don't like to put any Mod Podge on the actual napkin I just put it on the canvas and then I will set it down in that one area just do one area at a time I'm gonna set it down in that area and just gently kind of tap it down and then I'm going to take my paintbrush I'm not going to put any more Mod Podge on it I'm just going to leave it dry and just kind of push it down into that canvas and make sure I get out all the air bubbles and all the little wrinkles [Music] you don't want to play with it too much because if you do you'll have the chance of maybe ripping it or pulling it away from where it wants to stay so just gently kind of tap it down and just uh let it set and then go on to the next spot again just a really light light coat and then you're just going to place the napkin down where you want it and then just very gently take your paintbrush and as it's dry and just brush out any wrinkles or air bubbles [Music] okay and I have it all decoupaged you can see a little bit where I went over the edge when that's completely dry I'll take a little exacto knife and I can cut off all those pieces so they don't stick to the frame okay and now in the middle I'm going to do a reverse graphic transfer method using the Mod Podge so I've designed these graphics on PicMonkey and after you've designed them you want to make sure that you reverse the text if you don't when you put it on your project it will be backwards I print them off on my LaserJet printer on regular computer paper [Music] once again you're going to use the Mod Podge matte finish and you're going to put a light coat all over the graphic on just like when you're decomposing you don't want too much you know if you put too much it'll wrinkle up and it'll bubble so you're just putting a light coat over that whole graphic and then you're going to flip it over and Center it where you want it on your canvas and press out all the air bubbles and all the little wrinkles and that's how you do the Reversed transfer method I have lots of other tutorials in my DIY playlist I'll put the link below where I go even into more depth of how I make these Graphics that might help you out and inspire you for some different projects I use PicMonkey to make my Graphics it's a paid subscription but you don't have to you can use your a word program you can use canva you can use Google Docs any of those programs will help you create your own graphics [Music] thank you let everything dry overnight okay we've let everything sit overnight and now we're just going to dampen the graphics with a wet rag make sure you don't get any of that water on the um decoupage parts and then you're just going to rub away the paper and the graphics will stay on the canvas take your time rub gently uh you might need to add a little bit water if it dries out a little bit but just don't soak it if you soak it it will actually lift the graphics right off of the canvas so you just want it just damp and rub away and now for the last step I'm going to put on some verithane I like using the water-based satin and this is crystal clear non-yellowing and I like to use it as a top coat over the Mod Podge I find the Mod Podge sometimes is a little bit too thick and it can sometimes dry a little bit cloudy so this is my favorite top coat and there you have your upcycled canvas with decoupage napkins and a medium transfer graphic okay to do these projects I've picked out some scrap two by fours and I'm going to paint them with some chalk paint to do this technique I find that chalk paint works the best I've tried it with acrylic paint and I've tried it with latex and the chalk paint always works better I make my own chalk paint so I'll put a link below in the description so you can see my recipe and it works fabulous and I'm just going to put a base coat of black all over all four blocks okay the base coat of the black has dried and now I'm going to put a coat of my white chalk paint on one side that I'm going to do the transfer on I'm going to sand up the edges because I like that rustic chippy look and then they're ready for transfers and these are the four methods that I'm going to show you today just a regular transfer a napkin transfer an iron-on transfer and a reverse transfer and I'm going to be using my matte Mod Podge you can use a gloss I just like the look of the mat myself better I'm going to use all of the same graphics on each technique so when it's all finished you can see the difference of each one all of these with the exception of the napkin have been printed on regular computer paper with my LaserJet you can use your inkjet but you'll have to do a special step before you do it the first technique that we're going to do is the reverse transfer I've printed this off on my LaserJet and I've reversed the text this is very important with this technique is to reverse the text because you're going to flip it over when you put it on your piece of wood if you're going to use your inkjet printer I'll put a link below for a video that I made of the process that you have to do to your graphics or your photos before you do this technique [Music] now you're just going to put a light coat of mod podge all over the whole graphic until it's completely covered and then you're going to flip it over and press it onto the wood make sure it's centered exactly where you want it and then press out all the little Bubbles and all the little wrinkles and make sure it's adhered really well to the wood foreign you can also do all of these techniques with pictures that you've printed off on your computer just remember if you're using a picture that you have to reverse the image of it too before you do this technique now this needs to dry and I usually let it sit overnight and now we're just going to do a regular transfer you want to make sure that your piece of paper is cut the same size as your block of wood you don't want it any smaller because then your paper will show along the edges so you're just going to put a coat of mod podge all over the back of the graphic just put a nice light even coat all over and then you're going to flip it over and press it onto the piece of wood and make sure you get out all the wrinkles and all the bubbles with this technique you don't have to reverse your text you just leave it as is this is the most common way to use a Mod Podge transfer and it's the easiest one to do make sure you press all those bubbles and all those little wrinkles out if you have any and make sure it's pressed down nice and firm and the next technique is a napkin transfer so what you want to do is you're going to take your mod podge and put it on the block of wood and put a light coat you don't want it too thick with this transfer you just want a nice light coat over the entire surface and then you're going to pick up your napkin and just very gently lie it down and make sure it's centered and then just gently press it down with your finger I like to take my paintbrush and just kind of gently just tap it in and get any wrinkles or bubbles out that you might have I just did a tutorial on how to make your own napkins and I'll put that link below in the description because it's a really cool technique so you can make whatever kind of napkin you want with what any graphic or any photo I find it really hard sometimes to find the nice napkins that I like to use so that's why I make my own and here's a little trick if you have little bubbles or little wrinkles that show up when you're doing this get a little piece of cling wrap and just dab it where it is and it'll push that right out now the next technique is an iron-on transfer you want to make sure your paper is cut the exact same size as the block of wood you're going to put your Mod Podge onto the wood and you want to put a liberal amount on you want quite a bit this technique takes a little bit of practice it can sometimes be a little bit fussy and a little bit tricky so just be patient and give it a try now you're going to take that iron-on piece of wood and set it to the side and let it dry thoroughly okay now my napkin transfer has completely dried and I'm ready to put the top coat on you're just going to take your mod podge and just put a light coat over the whole napkin and seal it right up and now the regular transfer has completely dried and now I'm going to put a top coat of The Mod Podge all over that entire surface just a light coat and make sure you cover everything completely and we're going to let it dry okay now that Mod Podge that we put on that piece of wood for the iron-on transfer is completely dry we're going to take our image put it on the block of wood make sure it's centered exactly where you want it get some parchment paper has to be parchment paper Not wax paper because it'll stick you're going to take your iron have it on the highest setting six with no Steam and you're just going to iron it on top of that and let all the Mod Podge melt and adhere right to the wood just keep an eye on it you can lift up the parchment paper and just check the edges be careful it's hot and make sure that it is adhered well and it looks pretty good I'm just going to give it one last little iron it looks like it's adhered really well to the wood so I'm going to let it cool down and it'll be ready for a top coat and now I'm going to take the Mod Podge make sure it's nice and dry and it's not hot anymore and I'm going to put a nice light coat over the whole top and now we're just going to let it dry now the reverse transfer method has sat overnight it's completely dry you're going to take a damp Rag and you're going to rub the water all over the graphic until you start to see the word show through and then you're just going to take your fingers and rub all of the paper off takes a little bit of patience and a little bit of a knack but it looks fabulous the trick to this technique is not to have the paper too wet you just want it damp so you can just see the lettering through [Music] now it's all completely rubbed off and it's ready for a top coat I'm just going to put a light coat of The Mod Podge all over the top and you don't need to sand this because it's already all sanded around the edges and there's no paper to blend in okay now the regular transfer is completely dry the top coat of mod podge is dry and then I like to take the sander and sand all around the edges so it looks like it Blends right into the wood I'm using an 80 grit sanding block and it works really good you can also use an electric sander but it's out in my shed and it's really cold right now so I'm not going to go out there and use it now the napkin transfer is completely dry and again I'm just going to take my sander and just blend it in all along the edges and just give it a nice sand and now the iron-on transfer top coat is completely dry I'm going to take my sander and blend it in all around the block and there you have the four different techniques to use Mod Podge for image or graphic transfer let me know which one you like the best my favorite is a reverse transfer it Blends in really well and I just find it's nice and crisp and looks like it was made for the wood okay the first thing I'm going to do is I'm going to use these scrap pieces of wood that I've had and I'm going to turn them into shelf sitters I've printed off my Graphics off of my LaserJet printer this will only work with a LaserJet printer and you want to make sure that you reverse the text with this method and I'm using my verithane water-based Crystal Clear matte finish varathane this is what you need to use a water-based varathane so I'm going to cut them out the size for my wooden pieces the thing I really like about this method is you don't need to paint your surface I do a lot of mod podge reverse transfer technique and I find that it doesn't adhere it well to raw wood where this technique works really well on raw wood I am also going to show you this technique on painted wood I used some acrylic paint from the dollar store and it worked just as well on the acrylic paint as it did the raw wood this technique will not work with an inkjet the inkjet uses a different process of transferring ink and it just does not work with this type okay so the first step is to put a coat of this varathane on the wood now you don't want a thin coat you want quite a thick coat and you want to cover the whole area where the paper is going to sit you want to put enough on the piece of wood that the paper will adhere to it really well when you place it on it and then you're going to take your paper and press it down on the wood and this is where you have to have your reverse text because if you don't your letters will be backwards so you want to push it down firmly make sure it sticks right into that verithane rub it get all the little air bubbles and the wrinkles and if it doesn't stick then you don't have enough erythane so you want to go back and put more on and now I'm going to show you how it works with acrylic paint this is just acrylic paint from the dollar store I've painted it with one coat and I'm going to do the same method that I did with the raw wood you want to put a liberal amount of the verithane over the whole surface where the paper is going to be make sure there's enough for the paper to stick to it really well and then press it down and get all the bubbles and all the wrinkles out of it and make sure it's adhered really well into the verithane and we're going to let it dry completely the next step is to take a damp Rag and just wet the whole piece of paper until you can start to see the word show through and just rub away rub away all the paper and as you're rubbing away the paper you will see the lettering will stay on the wood mine took about an hour to dry but your drying times will be determined by how warm it is or how cold it is your humidity so you're just going to have to just see and just touch it and find out when it is completely dry the thing I love about this technique is when you're using the Mod Podge for a transfer you have to usually let it sit overnight so this allows you to finish up your projects a little bit faster and as you can see how crisp and clean those letters are if you're going to try this technique try it on a couple pieces of scrap wood so you get the feel of how it works and how well it adheres before you do your big project and now I'm going to show you how well it transferred onto the acrylic paint when you're doing this transfer of course you only want to do it on a Surface that's painted a light color if you're using a darker color underneath of course the lettering is not going to show through as well rubbing off the paper takes a little bit of patience and if you have to dampen your finger and add a little bit more water just do it the trick is don't put too much water on because then you're going to lift the varithane up off of the wood so it's kind of just a technique that you need to practice but it doesn't take long and you'll get the hang of it and you can see how nice and crisp the lettering is I'm going to put a link Down Below in the description of what I use for varathane but you can pick it up at Home Depot or any building supply store you just have to make sure that you buy the water base it will not work with the oil-based varathane you can also use this technique when you print off photos on your LaserJet printer just remember to reverse your image okay now that they're all done I'm going to seal them up with another coat of the Vera thing and there you have the cutest little shelf sitters using the verithane poly acrylic sealer water-based thanks for watching today's video on graphic and photo transfers and I hope you found some inspiration for your next DIY project if you have any questions concerning any of these techniques just leave me a comment down below and I'll try to help you out thanks for watching have a great day and we'll see you in the next video and if you love this video I'm sure you're going to love either of these next too take care

Channel: Our Upcycled Life

Views: 115,662

Keywords: photo transfer, image transfer, transfer, photo transfer to wood, tutorial, diy projects, transfer image to glass, easy image transfer, transfer photo to eveything, diy image transfer, how to transfer photos, mod podge photo transfer, ink jet printer, mod podge, how to transfer a photo to wood, diy wooden picture, diy project, photo diy, packing tape photo transfer, photo transfer techniques, transfer text to wood, mod podge on wood, mod podge on glass, mod podge on canvas

Id: QggwCb79hmI

Length: 107min 34sec (6454 seconds)

Published: Sun Mar 26 2023