Decopatch letter decoration tutorial

I used to be a crafter.  Before children.  When I had plenty of time.

I started off card making and sold some through work and friends (my mum bought a lot, and my OH is known to have given me cards that I’ve made, for my birthday!).  I then moved on to jewellery making, and set up a bit of an informal business to sell my wares.  Of course, I just don’t have time now, plus there’s so many jewellery makers out there, you have to be niche or just a good marketer to really stand out.

But I do like to try a few different crafts out and occasionally I’ll dabble in what Hobbycraft have to offer to try something new.  Decopatch is something I’ve done a little bit of in the past.  One year I upcycled and decopatched some bangles for gifts which worked out really well.

We still haven’t decorated N’s bedroom, although I’ve made a few pictures to hang up (still not hung), but I bought a letter N for decopatching a while ago.  As we’re pretty keen on blue in our house, the chances are N’s room will have blue touches of some sort in it.  I also wanted something fairly ageless rather than infant patterns so chose papers in denim pattern.

Decopatch is really simple and any age can do it. You need:

• an item to decopatch. I had one of the specific letters, but you could just have a box or any item that’s not varnished (if it is, just sand it a bit first to help the glue stick
• Papers – Decopatch is the brand name and the papers can be quite expensive, but then I only used half of 1 piece of the paper (pack of 3) to cover the one letter, so it does go a long way.  You could in theory use any thin paper, but the paper meant for this is really thin.
• Brush – whatever size works for you.  This was one I found and the flat type worked really well to get into the corners
• Glue/varnish – I have decopatch glue/varnish, but there’s various different types you can get. The alternative (especially if you’ve got children using it and don’t want to spend lots if they’re going to knock it over and slop it about) is to water down some pva glue and that should work ok.  You won’t get the ‘varnished’ finish on it though.

You just rip up the paper into small pieces, then area by area, brush on some glue, then lay on the paper pieces, and smooth over with the glue again.  You don’t need much for it to stick, and by overlapping you tend to avoid too many creases.  If you’ve got a lighter background to your papers, you might need a couple of layers, but with this, I was ok with 1 main layer and a few pieces overlapping over the top where needed.

I love that even if you’re not the neatest crafter, decopatch will usually look really impactful.  If you need to you can clear varnish over, but I didn’t need to.  I decided it looked a little flat on its own, so I added a bit of bling.  Ok, I know it’s for N, but he’ll like the sparkle too.

Now all we need is a shelf put up for this to sit on with his other nick nacks.

Have you ever done any decopatch before?  What crafts do you enjoy?

I’m linking up to the Parenting Pin Up Party.  Go and check out what other creations people have been making.