hi guys it's deidre from our upcycled life and welcome to my channel if you like thrifting
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today i have finally have a video on how you can use your inkjet printer with mod podge there's a
few little tricks and a few little techniques but it's definitely doable and today i'm going
to teach you how to do that with your inkjet printer at home so you don't have to buy a
laserjet printer not everybody wants to invest in a laserjet printer if you're only going to use it
now and then i use mine every day but a lot of you don't and you have an inkjet printer
so i'm going to show you how you can use your inkjet printer to do picture and graphic transfers
simple easy okay let's get started
for today's project i'm going to use these scrap pieces of wood that i've stained
i'm going to be turning them into shelf sitters
the first thing i'm going to do is i'm going to give each of them a coat of my homemade
chalk paint i always like to paint underneath any projects that i'm doing a mod podge transfer on
because if you don't you'll be able to see the wood through when you apply it onto the canvas
or the wood now i've just printed off these two pictures of my husband and i from recent
camping trips on our basic inkjet printer it's an hp it's base model not fancy at all
my husband and i love camping in the outdoors and i'm going to make these into little shelf sitters
to put in our camper the graphic that i wanted to make for this set i wanted to print it off
on a piece of aged paper i coffee stained it dried it and then put it into my printer
and printed off the graphic i'll put a link below in the description for how i make this paper
and these are the three pieces that i'm going to use on the wood
my two photos and my one graphic printed off on the aged paper
now i wanted to give the two photos that i printed out a little bit of an aged look too
like i did this graphic so i'm taking some of my leftover coffee stain and i'm just gonna dab it
around the edges of the photo just to give it that aged look also make sure you don't get it on
any of the photo so you don't run any of the ink you don't have to do any of these steps on your
photos i'm just trying to get more of a rustic look for the project when it's all completed
if any of you are interested my husband and i last spring when covet started we took on
a project of renovating a vintage pop-up camper and we made a whole playlist of how we took the
steps to fix it up to where it is now so if any of you are interested you can go and have a look
and watch our episodes from that adventure now the first step to having a successful inkjet transfer
is to put it in the oven on 200 degrees for 10 minutes this will dry the ink and bond it into
the paper so it doesn't run when you introduce the mod podge to it and this will also dry the
coffee stain that i put around the outside of the photos and i also don't think that i mentioned
that i'm just using plain computer paper this is just the cheapest computer paper that you can buy
from amazon okay these have been in the oven for 10 minutes and they've dried and the edges have
kind of curled up a little bit so what i like to do is put it between two pieces of parchment paper
and then i'm going to take my iron on the sec number six setting with no steam and i'm just
gonna flatten them out so they're nice and flat and they're easier to work with on my project
the next step is hairspray what you're going to do is you're going to seal those two photos
and those graphics with a spray of hairspray now you don't want to make it soaking wet you
just want to spray it so it's just damp on the top of the photos and of course now i'm
spraying it and their photos are flying all over i probably should have just done one at a time
this is just another step to ensure that that ink is sealed right into that paper
so when you put the mod podge on it it doesn't run or streak
i also like to flip them over and put a light spray on the back of the graphics and the photos
i printed off a fourth graphic so i could show you this other method
another method that you can try after you've taken it out of the oven for the 10 minutes
at 200 degrees is you can put a coat of mod podge on top of the graphic or the photo and
that will also seal it in if you don't want to do the hairspray i found both of these methods
work just as good now you're going to let that mod podge that you put on the top dry thoroughly
and once it's dry you can cut it out to the size that you need for your project
okay the chalk paint has completely dried on these wooden blocks and i'm going to give them
a real good sand all around the edges just to give it a nice distressed look
now we're ready to put on the three pieces that i used the hairspray technique on
i'm going to use my mod podge in a matte finish you don't have to use a matte
you can also use a gloss if that's what you have on hand
you're going to flip your graphic over to the back side and you're going to put a liberal
amount of mod podge on the back of that graphic just kind of from edge to edge side to side
you don't want to put a whole bunch on it you don't want it all gobby
and thick you want a nice thin layer covering the whole piece of paper
i find if you put it on too thick you will get bubbles and you will get wrinkles
then you're going to flip it over place it right where you want it make sure it's centered make
sure it's even and then you're going to just take your fingers and just print press it down gently
make sure you get out all the little wrinkles all the little air bubbles you don't want to press too
hard you just want to take your fingertips and just gently rub over the whole piece of paper
and as you can see it went on nice and flat and smooth
and now i'm going to do the other two photos that i also use the hairspray technique on
now this is the graphic that i put the mod podge on the top you're going to use
the exact same method as you did with the hairspray you're just going to put
a liberal amount of mod podge all over the paper spread it from corner to corner
not too thick because if you do put it too thick you'll get lots of wrinkles and bubbles and spread
it out and then you're going to flip it over and press it down on the wood and press out all the
little wrinkles all the little bubbles and make sure it's laying very flat on the piece of wood
and it laid down nice and flat with no bubbles and no wrinkles
now you're gonna let everything completely dry now we're ready to put the top coat on these
you're just going to take your mod podge and just put a light thin coat all over the whole
top of the photo now you don't want to put too much on this less is more you want just a nice
light coat just to seal it if you put it on too thick it will bubble up and it will wrinkle again
as far as using the hairspray method or the mod podge method i actually haven't really
found there was that much of a difference and they both worked really well for me
so you could try both and see which one you liked best and then let me know in the comments
i haven't found doing this technique to have any problems with any of my
ink running or streaking at all
now i did do a tutorial on comparing an inkjet printer and a laserjet printer
with the reverse graphic transfer and that was really interesting too i did have a little bit
of fading and a little bit of the graphics rubbing off when i did that technique but it still looked
really good when i was done so i'll put a link to that tutorial and you can watch that afterwards
and then you can probably try that technique with your inkjet printer at
home
and another little trick is get a piece of saran wrap and if you do
have any bubbles or any wrinkles that do show up when you're putting this mod
podge on just press them down with the saran wrap it won't stick to the paper
and it won't stick to the mod podge and it won't make your fingers all goopy
now this step is completely optional i just like to seal all of my projects with
some varithane this is water-based matte finish i've let the mod podge
completely dry and i'm just going to put a light coat of this varithane over the whole picture
it just gives it a little bit more durability and it's easier to dust and it seals it perfectly
this product is also non-yellowing so you don't need to worry about your projects discoloring
and now here's another tip this is the block that i use the mod podge technique on not the
hairspray i have not tried this technique using the hairspray it might work fine i was just afraid
that it might go sticky and gummy but you're going to set your iron at six and then you're
just gently going to press down and that mod podge will melt and it will get rid of all your bubbles
and wrinkles if you've used this technique with the hairspray let me know if it worked for you
i also wouldn't try this method if you've put the varithane on the top and i love these these turned
out amazing i can't wait to put them in my camper i'm actually going to probably start using my
inkjet printer more i didn't have any wrinkles any bubbles and my ink after using these techniques
never ran never streaked so get that ink jet printer out and try this technique with mod podge
i've had so many people asking me to make this video so i hope i've answered
all of your questions on how to use an inkjet printer to do your mod podge transfer method
thanks for watching and have a great day