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Finishing Touches: Decoupage & Cord Kit

And at this point, we're all going to get messy together and do a little bit of decca posh on the exterior now deck a posh is another crafting tradition that goes back ages and ages and I think it's in recent memory one of its most recent are one of its theme periods in which it reached ah, height of popularity was in the seventies you saw a lot of amazing decca posh crafts. People were doing plaques and trays and trash cans and all sorts of decorative objects and essentially what it is it is it's using a decca podge medium mod podge is one of those that came out of that era. I love the fact that the labels are still the same as they were back in the seventies, and it is a combination glue and ceilings all in one, which is kind of genius because it's going to save us a couple of steps, it will seal the exterior of our paper pendant and it's also going to allow us to apply some decorative paper to the exterior to create a really pretty finish. So the ladies all at their tables have some...

gorgeous papers that we purchased at a local art supply store all handmade and screened, which I love, they are available in numerous patterns and color weighs on dh you've got a lot of choices as far as um you know you've got a lot of selection to choose from when you're when you're picking these out, to find something that coordinates with your home or whatever place you want to stick your pendant, I've left your pieces hole so that you can kind of cut them down as you will, you can cut these into strips like I'm going to be using. I've cut the's about an inch wide on di did this just with a ruler and a craft knife, but you can also get some really interesting techniques. If you decide you want to tear the paper there, a couple of ways you can go about doing that, you can just simply take your ruler, lay that down, tear the pieces along the edge, and because this is a fibrous, handmade paper, you can see you almost get that little deck allege akin to what we found when we were making our own handmade paper. You could also opt tio cut out particular elements that are printed on your paper, the ladies with the sort of a paisley print paper that could be an interesting technique, or you could simply tear it into a little bit more irregular pieces. You can see what I'm tearing it by hand, I'm getting a much more severe sort of dekel edge, which could be a really lovely ornamental addition to the exterior, but so what you want to do, and I'm going to let you go ahead and start on. This is start to break down your pieces of decorative paper in whatever way you would like, be it ripping or cutting or tearing until you get a pilot's strips to start to work with robert, we cover the entire thing. Will we leave parts of it like you? I prefer that we do want you know what you can do whatever you like with it. Quite honestly, I tend to like to cover the entire exterior just almost as an added layer to kind of, like, fortify and strengthen its I would suggest if you decide you would like just to cover portions of it. Tio still up. Apply the deck a posh medium to the entire exterior justices sealant, but it can kind of see where your mind might be going with that. Because these are sort of a lovely kind of weathered exterior. Look with the dried with the dried flower. And if you were to cut out some of those paisley shapes and just sort of, you know, strategically placed them around on deck a deck a part of them on that could be really great sand down the outside to make it less organic, excellent question. Yes, you definitely can take a medium weight sandpaper and go over the edge is another thing that you can do is take your craft knife and you can kind of see, you know, maybe some occasional lumps you can almost to shave those off, and it actually does quite a nice job of getting those off. This is really dependent upon how you decide you want to treat the finish for something like this where we're just going to be decca, pausing other strips over top of them it's going to really disguise a lot of imperfections in the exterior of your bowl, but you definitely, you know, can go through and kind of chip off some of those more egregious bumps. Now I'm assuming, and maybe I shouldn't, that most of the ladies in our audience today have done deck a pause in the past in some form nice pay for ford because I found that the most absorbing paper deck approach is the best versus shiny glossy paper it's true well and that's also a night here a little easier but based terror a little easier it's true, but it is because it is a little bit more fibers it also tends to contour a little bit better to curvilinear shapes um, which is a nice thing and again, as we've been kind of chanting, is our mantra throughout this today, paper crafting workshop aa lot of this is just a process of experimentation were sort of arming you with some basic skills and techniques, but there are so many variations that you can stumble upon either through experimentation or sometimes even by mistake, that you may end up falling in love with I can think of many craft projects where something didn't go quite according to plan, but I ended up loving it more than my original idea. All right, so I have kind of gone through and chipped away aa lot of those bumps from the dried paper on the exterior, and I'm going to bring back my block. So again, we're just going to use thes blocks to hold it up nicely with the deck, a posh it's, good to have a little bowl, it usually comes in a larger canister, so I'm just gonna pour some out. What do you ladies thinking? As far as how you're preparing the strips, or you're tearing them? Are you cutting them care? You chaired, okay, the only the only one looks like, you know, like everybody that well, that's, what's really nice again about having the classroom structures, we're going to get to see several different variations of how people are deciding to sort of attack this project, but this one has such structured lines that if you tried to match him it wouldn't look good. So it's true? Why go for tearing up? No, I agree, I agree, so I'm taking a little bit of this deck a podge cheerio and I am putting it into the bowl here thie decca polish medium comes several different companies make it and it comes in a variety of finishes you could get it in a gloss, a satin amat I've seen variations that even have like a crackle finish to it to get a little bit more of an antique store, a weathered look, some that even have like a glittery substance added in so just read the labels when you go to shop for it so that you know what you're getting, I tend to stick with either a glossary sat and I like that little bit of a little bit of a shine to the exterior of the finished product. When I'm applying it, I tended to use thes standard foam brushes they're incredibly inexpensive, they can be reusable, but they can also be disposable depending on what sort of material using them with and you can see that this deck a posh medium, it does just look like a very watery sort of white glue, and what I'm going to do is I'm going to start by painting a narrow vertical area on one side going from the top to the bottom, I'm trying to get a little bit on the interior of the light that I cut for the cord kit, and again, you'll notice that I'm just doing a small area I'm then going to, like, get a little bit inside the lip and you'll see why I'm going to take one of my pieces of paper that I've cut I'm gonna lay it directly down, I'm overlapping a little bit at the top and at the bottom, going to smooth it down, and then I'm going to fold it into the interior smooth down plan on your hands, getting messy during this project, it's not as messy as the actual paper mache a, but they'll get a little sticky and you'll have to wash him a couple times, and then I'm also folding it into the interior now, while in the nice thing, too, about dependent light project in particular is you do have this hole at the top, you're kind of used to hold onto the ball while you're working on it. I'm going to get my brush back into the deck, a posh medium, and I'm going to go over top of the paper so you can see we did that first. Application onto the bowl in order to it here, the paper onto it. Now I'm doing a second application covering the paper and it's going to act as a ceiling, so this is making sure that it is very well it here to the exterior of the pendant light, and it also, while it does not make it waterproof, it does make it a little bit more water resistant literally just come up on each other, which is asking, is, how how does it hold up in humidity? You know, fairly well, I think if you live in a very high human high humidity climate, I might consider in addition to the deck a posh, perhaps adding on a spray varnish or finish most craft supply stores you can buy sort of a clear coat finish that will just add that extra layer of protection on dh prevented from getting any damage. So once you've done that, then you're just going to move on alongside your first strip and again painting down and again, you conceive this entire process is it's very sort of methodical and meditative. It's one of those projects where you released kind have to stop and take your time, which I love those projects every now and then I'm not every project needs to be finished in a half hour, uh which I think you know, I feel like so many of us feel like I got to get it done and I got to get it done right now but sometimes it's nice to have that project that you know, you work on for purity of time and you can really be proud of the finished result and I should say with these, if you get to a point where you really need to stop with the deck oppose you absolutely can do that and return to it at a later point it's not time sensitive that you finish it all in one go um so you do have a little bit of that flexibility, which is nice doing the outside? You won't do the you know what? For this particular round, I am just going to do the exterior I've got a couple of swap outs where I will show you ah possible treatment for the interior, but you definitely could decca posh both the exterior and the interior of the light, which I think could be really lovely and especially depending on where you position the pendant light in your home often they're high enough up that you see both the underside and the top side of them, so that could be a really nice ornamental decorative elements like a solid color that was slightly metallic saw reflected the light funny you should say that we tell our swap out my friend we're thinking a life like that rachel thank you crack is this where you were talking about using the using a little bit of masking tape correct you can just if you have any splits along the edges as phyllis is talking about you can simply use a little bit of standard masking tape um to secure the two sides together and then just decca pas right over it no one will ever know it's there now I should say as you're laying these strips down around if that's the method you're going for you can talk some of them inside some of them you can just get closer to the edge and smooth down it's really just going to be each project is going to be a little bit different obviously because everybody's working with different contours as far as the mold that you choose to work with and you will find as you're wrapping it around if you do talk a lot of the pieces into the top hole it's going tio increased that thickness and after drives you may need to go back in with your craft knife and cut off a little bit of that wrapped paper so that your pendant like it will fit down into the top s o just so you're for warren there may be a few adjustments that you'll need to make towards the end but it's not a problem yeah, fine idea might be teo use I like using paper punches like even to work also may be doing a scales like starting at the bottom and going towards absolutely yeah, that's a great idea. I don't know if you've seen these most crafting stores have them now they're handheld paper punches and they will punch out usually lightweight paper in a variety of shapes you can get them and scallops and circles and hearts and squares on dh that would be another method of preparing paper to deck a posh to the exterior versus doing a strip method. What kathy was describing is perhaps doing ah layer of circles that start around the bottom and then building up another rings so that by the time you get to the top, you've got this beautiful, almost scaled exterior to your pendant light. I like that a lot other things that you might want to think about is you far is using paper a cz faras your paper options they're concerned for deck opposing onto the exterior you absolutely could use some of the handmade paper that we made in our earlier session that could be a really beautiful exterior to a pendant light. You could also use some of the marble paper that we used taking those sheets and cutting them down into strips or a variety of sizes and decca polishing them onto the exterior now I have had people asking in the past about simply taking white glue and watering it down and using it instead of a deck a posh medium that's been made specifically for decca podge I've seen varied results from that and it's definitely worth an experiment I honestly do not know what additional additives air in a deck a polish medium that might allow it to be a better seal into than just a watered down glue but if you know push comes to shove and that's all that you have in your in your supply cabinet I think it might be worth in experiments I don't know have any of you ladies had experience with that using just sort of a water down blue versus a deck a posh medium know have used it when we used strange you know string on berlin's yes but not with doing it with this type of thing yeah could you use like a medium like a gel medium or something like that instead of specifically deko podge? That is a really good question as faras in adhesive in a ceiling I honestly don't have enough experience with gel mediums to be able to answer that um but that's a really good question maybe someone in our online audience might know the answer to that your cover piece are you'd and smoothing down the edges or do you did you really want to go for an abstract kind of look I'm trying on because it was such a exact pattern I didn't I'm just gonna let it labored plays but I love to tear I started doing that was scrapbooking so I do a lot of tearing stuff that would be perfectly this is a great material let us know yeah, and it I don't know what it's going to look like when I get done what you think I just start just started there in the madeleine you took the path and you cut out very, very specific shape, so you're going to have leave perhaps the base there's a visible in some not sure yeah, we'll see how they they fall on the shame I think they might need to overlap a little bit, but it's almost like deconstructing the pattern and recreating it way kathy kathy, you are using strips, it looks like you think you were cutting out the partisan letting your randomness happened let's see what happens absolutely and again that's kind of one of the joys of having these ladies in the room with us is that you know you're seeing what I'm doing, but you're also seeing the way that they approach the projects and so it's really a benefit because you're seeing multiple applications of the paper to the exterior kathy you were talking earlier about having deck a part of the exterior of a dress form with book pages and so I think that could be a really lovely paper to choose for the exterior of a pendant light as well. You know, if you've got one of those books, perhaps from a library sale that has been discarded and is no longer going to be on the shelves. Um, it's kind of a very specific, lovely look, having the printed page, decca polished and random ways onto a surface. So I know that you are all still in progress. And we're going to kind of check in you to see on in on you to see how that's going. But I also want to do a little reveal and kind of show you how we're getting closer to the end result. But that is going to look like so using the exact same paper. You can kind of see that this is what the exterior is going to look like once it's completely covered and dried. And you can see on this one that I did have to go back in with my craft knife. And I had a lot of paper that I was overlapping into that central hole. I just needed to go back through and kind of clean that out a little bit. Now, as far as the way that you ornament the interior, there are lots of possibilities. As phyllis suggested, decca polishing the interior is a fantastic option. You could also take some paints and painted a solid color and a cz rachel was saying she and I are thinking alike on this project. What I did is I took some painter's tape and I basically went all the way around the edge. And then I decided to spray the interior gold. So you get a little bit of that nice contrast in the interior. It might be slightly reflective when the pendant is hanging, but it also just adds a nice finish to the interior of the project. So now that that is done while you ladies continue to work, I'm going to put the cord kit on this just so that you can see what that looks like. Also, gold leaf it. Oh, I love that idea because that truly would be reflective if you used to the gold leaf, um, with the cord kits. As I said, I went back and I cleaned this out a little bit so that the end would fit nice and snug down into the top on and you can see once it's in there you really cannot see any of that rough unfinished interior edge that I was kind of trimming and then when you flip it upside down, you can get a sense of how far it sticks down into the interior of the pendants and then you'll notice on the ring that you need to screw on it looks a little bit like a top hat this flat portion you want to be flush with the interior portion of your penance I'm just going to screw that right on there so it's nice and snug little hang nice and neat there and I think we have when you find an outlets and a light bulb and we're going to give this a little go and see how it looks excuse me a moments gonna disappear here there we go right now obviously these are standard incandescent light bulbs you can use any type of light bulb you'd like you can use one that a little more eco friendly you can use some of those grates edison bulbs that have those beautiful filaments in them you can see it's quite nice when it's hanging up most court kits had just a little on off switch on them um and I think it looks quite greats, so I'm going to show you one additional one. I've kind of created a partner piece for this one, and what I love about the idea of these pendants is the idea of doing them in clusters when you're hanging them so you can see for this one, I took a considerably larger bowl. It was actually part of the same nesting siri's of bowls that we used is the mold form for this first one, but I do want to show you the interior. This is one that I just left raw, so it's, all of the pieces have obviously been folded around the edges, but I haven't done any additional a treatment into the interior other than use the deck a possum gm to kind of seal it. I just wanted to be able to show you the contrast between the finished painted interior and the raw interior, but let's, go ahead and I'm going to add the light kit to this piece is, well, now, are there any challenges with the heat from the light with this particular material is a really good point. Thank you. You do want to keep it a low wattage bulb in most of these on dh. You don't want most court kits will come with recommendations on how far the sides of the pendant light need to be from the light bulb. Follow those closely just really pay attention to that and again, I think of these more as pendants that will add a little bit of ambience and lower light to a room setting rather than an extremely bright one. I just don't think you want to test fate you don't want to do anything that's perhaps higher than forty fifty watt bulb, so just keep it a little bit lower wattage I think the one that we're using today are what do we do in thirty watts, the other thirty watt bulbs so very low lights at a beautiful glow to the room, all rights of this guy gonna unscrew the security ring on the end? And what was fun as I ordered by court kits in advance and I took them in with me to the art supply store when I started picking out the papers in that way, it could kind of coordinate a little bit, you know, the colors of the cords with the colors of the paper I was using for the exterior of the shades, so again with this one, you can see how the court kit sticks through that hole that we cut in the center, taking the ring again with the flat side flat against the interior excuse me super easy to install you just want to make sure that it's secure enough and snug enough that it's not going to come loose and I'm going to go ahead screw that bold into there, all right? You can see and actually I wonder kathy, could I employ your assistant for just a moment and holding some of these up? Thank you think it shows the shortest person that's all right, I'll give you the little one you just kind of want to now these the court kids obviously come wrapped up and they're going to take a little time once they're hanging to loosen up and release some of their kinks so both of these air you need to let's flip yours on where is your here we go, sorry, guys, hang on one second there we go and kind of see they're lovely they're really nice and you can imagine a grouping of these and a cluster together two or three above the kitchen or dining room table, but it just kind of gives you a sense of how they look lit. Thank you so much, that's sticking out the bottom a few years ago I am wanted a lower profile one because I had my dad had made a wine bottle lamp and so the lamp shade didn't come quite down so they have ones of the neck is shorter and a very good neighbourhood. That would be something that we're really smaller one. But I have to tell you, I also don't necessarily mind the fact that the ball comes down a little bit lower. I think it's a specific kind of aesthetic or look. And, as I did mention, they do have those beautiful edison bulbs now, with a clear exterior and there's, very decorative filaments for the interior, which could just be part of the whole aesthetic of your piece.