Of course, anyone who's spent about 5 minutes on pinterest (or gone to preschool) knows that Modge Podge can be put to all sorts of crafty uses. But people are still always surprised when I say I used the stuff to make or improve something. Though my experiments haven't always turned out exactly as I wanted, I usually end up loving my creations anyway. Here, I show five different Modge Podge projects I've made over the years. (Instructions from memory are included).
1. Modge Podge Vase
The paper I used for this is actually from the bag someone gave my parents wine in. I held on to the bag for awhile trying to find a use for it. When I acquired two of these clear vases, I decided to cover one of them in the paper. All I did was sand the vase, cut the paper to size, paint glue all over the vase and back of the paper, affix the paper to the vase and then paint the outside with glue. I did a few coats on the outside and then I flattened the excess paper on the bottom to the base and glued that there. (Note: I remember having some trouble getting the paper to stick initially, especially where the two sides meet. I believe I used some rubber bands to hold the paper in place until it stuck all around after a few coats of glue on the outside.)
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Detail of bottom.
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A friend gave me these Aldo heels (originally a dark nude) because they were too small for her. I wore them until I really couldn't anymore (the leather cracked at the toe and was practically gone on the heels) but couldn't bear to throw them away. They sat in my closet until a friend sent me a link for painting the heels of your heels with glitter to glam them up or disguise wear and tear. I thought, "Hey, if it's good enough for the heel, why not try the whole shoe!" and set to work.
Instructions:
1. use a pair of sturdy heels (I suggest those heels you loved so much you wore them out. You can always go get the plastic tip replaced if that has worn off).
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I tried to capture the detail here.
There is a very subtle sparkle and up close
the texture is a bit rough, but I really
like the way they turned out.
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2. clean them. I used nail polish remover because the heels were patent and I wanted to get rid of some of the coating. After that I sanded them a little but this is optional.
3. tape off the heel and insides. I used painters tape and just folded it in at the edges to get clean lines.
4. mix some glitter and modge podge. I really just eyeballed this, but I used a lot of glitter so the modge podge was all black. You don't want to mix a huge batch of this at once because it will harden, it's better to have to remix in the middle of one coat than to have any left over. (Note: the glitter I used (from Jo-Anne Fabric) was really small. I kind of like the way that the glitter is not very noticeable on these but if you wanted them to be more glittery, you should use bigger glitter.)
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Artsy picture of me wearing the heels.
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5. paint the heels. a lot. Seriously, I have no idea how many coats this took, but it was a lot. I waited an hour or two between coats so that it would dry and the process was slow. Each coat adds more glitter until the whole shoe is covered. If there are any spots that look thin, just dab those areas with some more mixture. I used a regular paint brush for this (the cheap kind) and a detail brush at the end.
6. let dry. you're going to want to let these 'cure' for awhile before you wear them. I wore mine pretty soon after and it was rainy and I had to retouch them after (nothing major though, I just wanted them to look perfect). But, that's the beauty of these shoes: ou can scuff them all you want and you can just add some more glitter and they're good as new!
Note on water resistance: As I said, I had some trouble with these in the rain initially but I didn't after that. If you wanted them to be waterproof you could give them a clear protective coat. I'm not sure what you'd use, but keep in mind that you might have trouble re-touching them afterwards.
3. Modge Podge Tray
This is a tray I picked up at Goodwill (it originally had a tomato or something on it). I painted it this grey color (Martha Stewart Paint) and then glued this pretty card stock I found at Jo-Anne Fabrics to the bottom. I used a pretty thick modge podge/water solution (just enough water to make thin the glue a little bit) and applied it to the bottom and top of the paper, painting over the paper a few times to give it a protective coat. I think I used the matte kind of Modge Podge here because I didn't want it to come out too shiny.
I love the way it looks, and it's the perfect size to hold my remotes on my coffee table!
This was a really simple project. I had these shelves, which were originally espresso (as was all of my old furniture (I'm so sick of that color)), and I covered them in paper using the same method as above. I will try to upload better picture of these, they're real conversation pieces.
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I use these shelves to hold pictures and
other knick-knacks I want to display.
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I got this idea from a store display in South Korea, so I started collecting foreign newsprint to cover a shelf when I got home. The bottom set of shelves is covered in South Korean, Vietnamese, Chinese, and Japanese newsprint. I didn't have quite enough paper to cover the whole thing so I ended up using the finance section of the NYT to fill in the gaps. I also added some paper money from my travels (ssshhh, don't tell, you aren't supposed to take any Yuans out of China), these amount to like 50cents, and I was previously using them as bookmarks.
Personal Note: One thing I did when I was hostel hopping in Asia was to leave whatever small amount of paper money I had left at the end of my trip in a book and leave it in the library at the hostel. Usually hostels have books you pick up and leave at whatever hostel you're at when you finish. I thought this was a nice thing to do, so whoever got the book next would have a nice surprise.
5. Modge Podge Poster
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This poster is shown in the
above picture as well.
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I bought this poster of a baby elephant (so cute!) on Amazon for like a dollar. I loved it but didn't think it would look good in a frame and since I think I'm too old to have plain posters on the wall, I decided to glue it to a canvas. This is a remarkably simple way to sort of 'civilize' a poster. You literally just mix some modge podge with water, paint the canvas with it, paint the back of the poster with it, put the poster on the canvas (carefully lining up the edges), and then paint the mixture on top a few times (I probably put on 4 or 5).
The trickiest thing is getting rid of all the air bubbles. What I did was use a flat edge (a ruler or something) to push the bubbles from the center to the edge. I did this a lot at first and then less with each successive coat. Keep in mind that the air bubbles will go away when it dries - but not if they are too big.
I should note that because the mixture is wet, it can make your paper tear. That happened on this poster when I was trying to get the air bubbles out. I ended up liking the finished product because it makes it look a bit aged and less like I glued a poster to a canvas, but if you're worried about that you might want to find another way to do this (perhaps spray adhesive).
6. Modge Podge Map Quote
On my bedroom wall.
When I taught English in Japan I made it a point to travel as much as I could and I tried to save all my city maps. This is a map of Kyoto (my absolute favorite place I went in Japan) that I modge podged to a canvas using the same process as above. I originally cut out some pictures from brochures of places I loved and put those where they were located on the map but hated the way it looked. Then the canvas sat in my laundry room for a year or so until I decided to do something with it. At that point I added the pages of a map I'd saved from the old Fodors guide I found at my school.
This quote is from (of all places) a Wiz Khalifa tweet at the end of 2012 (when I started using twitter again). I instantly loved it, wrote it down in a few places and tried to figure out what to do with it. Finally one night when I decided to come home from a pre-game instead of heading to the bar with everyone else (read: I was tipsy), I decided it should go on this map, in cursive.
So, I put on some music, got out some graph paper (not immediately, I remembered I had this after I tried to make my own, after I'd spent awhile writing this out), cut it to the size of the canvas and decided how I wanted the letters. Then I blocked off where each letter should go (based on the dimensions, each letter was supposed to be like 2 inches high and 1 inch wide. This varied a bit but I tried to stick to it) and got to work writing it out in large cursive. This took a.w.h.i.l.e. but it's ok because I had good music and some beer in the fridge. After I liked the way it looked on the graph paper, I traced it onto parchment paper (b/c that's what I had and it's kind of translucent).
The next day I bought some charcoal paper, secured it over the canvas, secured my parchment paper over that, traced over the parchment (which transfers some of the charcoal to the canvas. Note: this resulted in a very light outline), and then painted over the outline. I used some oil based black paint I'd bought for something else awhile ago and an eyeshadow brush I never liked very much (because that's what I had and I'm resourceful like that). I cleaned up the paint with a Q-Tip and let it dry.
7. Modge Podge Propaganda Poster
This was my first experience with modge podge. I save it for last because, though I love the final result, it wasn't supposed to look like this. I bought a reproduced propaganda poster in Vietnam and wanted to display it on an aged canvas.
To 'age' the canvas, I brewed some really strong tea (a bunch of bags, not much water) and painted that on the canvas a few times until I got the color I wanted. Then I used the above process to put glue the poster to the frame. This is where I got in trouble. The paper was especially porous and the water/modge podge mixture made all the colors run (it was originally a very vivid picture). To salvage the poster as best I could (because going back to Vietnam wasn't really an option), I blotted up the ink on the poster with a paper towel, paying special attention to where the edges of the colors were. It still ended up running all over, and the picture is a bit crooked because I didn't want to move it after the colors started running but now it is softer and probably more appropriate living room decor.
