Make Your Own Vintage Botanical Print Plate

I’ve always admired John Derian‘s work. His decoupaged glass plates, paper weights and cake domes, have elevated glue and printed paper to new decorating heights. When you see his work, it is no surprise to find it available in fine home stores.

Decoupage dates back to 12th century, but flourished in Europe during the 18th and 19th centuries due to the high demand for artist decorated furniture. Not everybody could afford hand painted furniture, walls and ceiling which lead to the cheaper and more accessible art form of decoupage.

So why not make your own? There are plenty of royalty free sources of vintage botanical, animals, sea life and more available for download and print.

SUPPLIES:
- glass dish plates: find them in thrift or craft stores.
- paper: photocopies (work well), wrapping paper, newspaper. Make sure the surface is not glossy
- pencil
- white glue
- scissors
- water

HOW TO:

Lie your glass plate face down onto the paper you’ve selected. This gives you a visual idea of your end result. As a beginner, it’s better to make a few copies of your paper, so if you mess up your first attempt, you can give it another try. Draw a line around the plate roughly 0.5 to 0.75 inches out.

Cut the paper on the line and you’ll end up with a paper slightly larger than your plate.

Relax the paper in water for 30 seconds or so. This is really important, because it gives the paper a little bit of flexibility.

Now glue up the bottom of the plate. You can use a brush, but I always use my fingers.

Center the wet paper face down on the bottom of the plate and carefully smooth out any air bubbles.

Important Note: Have some more glue and water handy and work with very wet hands! Otherwise the paper will stick to you instead of the plate.

To help shape the wet paper to the plate, slice the edge of the paper with scissors a few times from the top rim to the bottom like in the picture above. Don’t worry too much about the wrinkles. You’re not John Derian.

Trim the rim with your scissors and …voila…you’re done. There is no picture of this step, because my hands were too gluey.

Put it upside down on a glass and let it dry for a few hours (depending on the weather). You can also paint the bottom of the plate if you want to, but I skipped that today. You can also coat the bottom with some Modge Podge or other sealant.

Nice thing about these plates is that you can eat off them because the paper doesn’t touch the food. If you are using it for food, gently hand wash. It will stand up to some use. Here is a plate with Japanese wrapping paper.