Saturday, February 23, 2013

How to Transfer Ink onto Wood

Every time I see an old cabinet door at a garage sale, flea market, or restore I snatch it up.  I love trying to figure out new and interesting things to do with these doors. I had a few lying around and I couldn't figure out what to do with them.  I finally came across a cute idea on Pinterest and I thought I'd give it a try. Art is Beauty is where I found the idea, and the tutorial was found on Home Frosting After reading through the tutorial on how to transfer the ink, I decided to try it out myself. It didn't work out exactly how I thought, so I had to change the tutorial slightly.  I'll show you exactly how I did it!


For this project, you will need an old door, or piece of wood, spray adhesive, freezer paper, paint, wax or polycrylic, scizzors, a piece of paper, and a spoon.  
I started by painting my cabinet door using Magnolia chalk paint.  You can use regular latex paint as well, I just like chalk paint better. 
I then cut out a fairly large piece of freezer paper and used my spray adhesive to glue the non shiny side of the freezer paper to my regular paper, so that the shiny side is now showing.  


I then cut the freezer paper to the same size as my regular sheet of paper. You now have a piece transfer paper that you can reuse over and over again.   I put the paper in my printer ( make sure to position your paper so that the image will print onto the shiny side.  I went over to The Graphics Fairy, and found a really cute graphic with a fork, knife, and spoon. 



I printed this on my paper and rubbed it onto my board with the back of the spoon.   I was a little dissapointed because the ink was so light that it could barely be seen.  I tried it over and over again, and it just wasn't working very well.  Finally, I had the idea to try a fresh coat of paint to make the ink stick better.     So I repainted the door very lightly, and let it dry for about 5 minutes.  I then tried it again, and it worked perfectly!  I then distressed it a bit with some sandpaper, and then coated it with a clear wax.  I let the wax dry for about 30 minutes and then wiped it with a soft rag.  If you aren't using chalk paint, you can use polycrilic instead of wax.  




I was so thrilled with the result. This can also be done on fabric or other surfaces.  I think I will be doing more ink transfer projects in the future!

I linked up to these awesome parties:

1 comment:

  1. I tried this once and had the opposite effect, I had way too much ink and it all ran together. It probably has something to do with printers and their settings. It turned out nice!

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