Ikea Pots Paris Style

I don't know what it is about French labels and French typography, but we don't seem to be able to get enough of them, do we?  Or maybe I can only speak for myself.  Yesterday I shared with you that my project for the day was a complete failure, and it was.  This is the salvaged and saved project, and I'm pretty darned pleased with it!

 Little did I know when I started this it would be a product comparison between three products, but that's exactly what it turned out to be.  I started out with a couple of Ikea pots.  I liked the shapes of them because they were not the typical terra cotta pots.  I have had wonderful luck with two projects using the Splendid Blender to transfer images so I thought I would try the same method on my pots.
I have no idea what went wrong because these pots are not shiny at all.  They were flat paint, then had acrylic craft paint dabbed on and zero, nada, zilch.  My image would not transfer with the Splendid Blender and I was using the required laser copy, not inkjet.  Soooo I sprayed the pots with Valspar clear flat spray to seal in the acrylic paints.  Still zero, nada, zilch.  No transfer!

Well, darn it!  I wanted this image on my pots.  So I had Mod Podge on hand, and what blogger doesn't?  I also had purchased some Liquitex Matte Gel medium which I have read works great with transfers as well.  So I put the products to the challenge.

In my book Mod Podge won hands down.  I put it on my mirror image laser copy and stuck it on the pot and left it overnight.  I did the same with the Liquitex on the small pot.  The Liquitex left a calcified water appearance behind which would not budge.  If you like that look, then that's the product for you.  Next to each other, you can see the results of the two products and compare.

Here is the pot as it started out.  Kind of gray.  Then I added some Delta burnt umber and dabbed it on with a dry paper towel.

After that, I came back with a new paper towel and dabbed on Delta leaf green.  Then I dabbed the Delta terra cotta.  It was all sealed in with the Valspar clear flat spray, and then I applied my mirror image laser copy to each pot using the two respective products.  I let them both sit over night and then I dampened my paper labels and gently backed them off with my fingertips.  I had to repeat about five times throughout the day to get most of the paper removed.  Then I came back with light steel wool, and knocked off the little remaining particles of paper.

I dabbed the inside too, just because it looks better when it's for sale.  The photo below was before I took my steel wool to knock off the excess pieces of paper, but I love the result and will definitely try this method again.

I'm partying at...


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