Tutorial: Beach Decoupage

I just came back from a week at the beach and am trying to hold on to a bit of that vacation feel while sorting through photographs and adding to our shell collection. In this process I decided to combine the two by decoupaging a picture of our beach shack to one of the shells we found on the beach right in front of the same house.

For this project you will need:

• A clean shell - this particular shell is approximately 3 inches by 5.5 inches
• An image - I photoshopped a picture of the shack using this tutorial. You could also cut out an image from a pretty paper napkin
• A sheet of printable fabric
• Mod Podge or a similar type of glue
• Acrylic gloss or lacquer

Measure your shell and determine how large your image should be. Using a photo editing program or a copy machine, size your photo accordingly.

 
Print your image onto the printable fabric (you may want to print it on plain paper first to check whether the sizing is accurate). Make sure there's enough white space around the printed image so you can cover the entire front of the shell.
  

Cut out the image and remove the paper backing from the printable fabric.

Paint a coat of Mode Podge onto the shell.

Place your image onto the shell and adjust it until you're happy with the way it looks.

Paint a thin coat of Mod Podge onto your project and let it dry completely. Repeat five or six times to seal the image.

 
Trim the fabric flush with the edge of the shell.

Because Mod Podge often stays a little tacky, I like to seal the whole thing front and back with varnish. Here's my vacation memory ready for a shelf.

Happy Summer!

Simone
groundsel.etsy.com