DIY Wedding
How to Decoupage a Tray
February 16th, 2009 in patterns & designs, home decorating, paper crafts
Jeffery Rudell, contributor
41 users recommend
The final Katazome-covered tray is bold and beautiful and allows me to bring a beautiful piece of paper out of a drawer and into my daily life.
Photo: Jeff Rudell
My relationship with paper—and that's what it is, a relationship—is a curious one: I love it, I appreciate it, but more often than not, I cut, fold, or otherwise mutilate it after which I usually get rid of it (pass it off to a client, a photographer, a friend). Visitors to my studio are always surprised by the fact that for someone who works almost exclusively with paper, there is so very little of it on view around me.
To help remedy this situation, I have lately been thinking of ways in which I might get some of my more prized pieces of paper out of the storage drawers (where they lie perfectly flat and protected from creases and dust) and into my actual world where I can see and feel and appreciate them for the beautiful things they are.
Recently I visited an Ikea store in New Jersey and there found a lovely, 15-inch-diameter plastic serving tray. By lovely, I mean the size was great (large enough to hold a sandwich, some soda, and a plate of chips), it was sturdy (so it might well serve to carry a steaming pot of hot tea and a plate of biscotti), and it was inexpensive (marked down to $5.99 from its regular price of $9.99). The only thing wrong with it was, it was an ugly computer-beige with rather insipid little amoeba shapes printed on it. However, ugly seemed like a problem I might be able to tackle.
In my studio was a gorgeous piece of Japanese paper—a decorative Katazome—that I had been saving for just the right application. Katazome is a handmade process of stencil-dying paper using a starch-resistance method that can be traced back to 15th-century Japan. In brief, a design is cut into a stencil (the stencil paper for this particular process being a work of art in itself—it is treated with an elixir made from Persimmon, which gives it a rich tobacco coloring and prevents it from absorbing any of the starches used in the design transfer process). Once the stencil has been prepared, it is placed over a sheet of handmade paper and a starch solution is then applied through the stencil onto the paper's surface. When the starch is dry, pigments are applied by hand. As a final step, the entire sheet of paper is placed in a bath to loosen and remove the dried starch. The result is visible below. (Note: The areas of the paper that appear "white" were covered with starch prior to the pigments being applied. Once the pigmentation was complete and the starch was washed away, the white areas of the paper became visible again.) For anyone who is familiar with the beeswax and pigment process of making Ukrainian Eggs, Katazome is very similar.
Beautiful, bold-shaped tray, meet gorgeous handmade paper. The marriage has resulted in utter bliss. The finished tray sits beside me on the table as I write this (holding a pot of coffee, a newspaper, and the most delicious H&H bagel—a New York treasure—I have ever tasted).
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An inexpensive plastic tray from Ikea (on sale, $5.99) provides the foundation for this project though any flea market find will suffice. |
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My sheet of Katazome paper. The vividness of the design and the resiliency of the paper itself make it a perfect material for my purposes. Choose something with a pattern that will disguise the slight overlap that will occur around the lip of the tray. |
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Using a soft lead, draw a circle around the bottom of the tray. Be certain your pencil point extends under the lip of the tray in order to get a shape that accurately describes the inner dimension of the tray bottom. |
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Once you have your circle, locate its center and place a small pencil mark there. |
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With your straightedge on the center point, draw 4-inch-long lines extending out from the circle's edge at 3/4-inch intervals around the entire circumference. |
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Use a craft knife to cut along the lines drawn in the step above. Lay a thin coat of paper glue on the surface of your tray, and position your paper in place. Smooth to remove any air bubbles. (Modge Podge or even Elmer's -- thinned a bit with water -- will work.) |
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Glue each piece of "fringe" in place. Note: As you affix each strip of paper to the inside lip of the tray, it will overlap its neighbor slightly. Gently burnish all edges and concavities periodically with your thumb and allow all areas to dry completely before proceeding to the reverse side of the tray. |
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Once the front of the tray is dry, turn it over on your work surface and continue gluing each piece of "fringe", only this time onto the convex surface of the tray. |
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A picture of the rear of the tray showing all of the strips of paper glued in place. |
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Using your tray as a template, draw another circle the same size as the first one you drew, above. This circle has NO fringe and should be carefully cut out using a craft knife or a scissors. Glue this final piece into place, being sure to overlap slightly the paper that wraps around from the front of the tray. |
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Finish the piece by coating it with Modge Podge or a similar decoupage sealer. The final tray is bold and beautiful and allows me to bring an extraordinary piece of paper out of a drawer and into my daily life. This has quickly become one of my most favored and frequently used trays. |
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Comments (8)
Posted: 10:45 am on March 30th
Posted: 8:13 pm on March 22nd
Posted: 4:12 pm on March 1st
Posted: 8:39 am on February 19th
Posted: 1:03 pm on February 16th
You really hit another one out of the park with this project! Gorgeous! As usual, I have linked to it on DudeCraft.com.
Cheers,
Paul
Posted: 12:54 pm on February 16th
i just bought some of that really great snakeskin paper from kate's paperie to do something very similar in my living room!
Posted: 2:10 am on February 16th
Posted: 12:13 am on February 16th