Using Transfer Gel ~ an Armoire Makeover

This is the "before" photo of the massive Chateau Armoire for sale in the shop.

It is a reproduction piece and had a peachy faux finish coated in a slick poly coat 

that just didn't suit my taste.  I came up with a makeover plan

for this big boy and it was going to be dramatic!

I planned to use my beloved Chalk Paint® of course,

and some new toys from Artisan Enhancements that we 

are excited to have in the shop now.

One of those products is the Transfer Gel and many people have expressed

interest in seeing a step by step account of how it works.

First thing I did was to paint two coats of French Linen Chalk Paint over the armoire.

 Because the transfer gel will work better on a lighter base color

 I painted the panels of the doors with Duck Egg.  My idea 

was for the armoire to have an aged Venetian feel to it~

so while it might look pretty simple

right now, it is not going to stay this way!  I had two images 

that I intended to transfer to the doors,

so I positioned them with a light pencil marking and then applied the 

gel to both the cabinet area where the transfer would be 

as well as to the face of the image itself. 

 Paint the gel right onto the good side of the image, not the white side!

Then position it onto the surface and using a plastic scraper 

(or a credit card) smooth out all the bubbles.  Some of the gel 

will squish out the edges, just wipe it away. You can see the 

dark areas of the surface that were wet be transfer gel. 

These will end up leaving a tell tale sign called a halo.  

I will address that later~!

 After you attach you images you need to use PATIENCE! 

Wait overnight for your images to dry completely and that means 

do some other stuff while you are waiting like Justin and I did~

we were playing around with 

all the Artisan Enhancements stuff while the day passed into night.

You will see it drying up~even if it looks dry, 

it still needs more drying time.

 Don't rush this part or you will be a sad artist.

The next day I came in early I was so excited...

  I was waiting for Justin 

to get to the store so we could start removing the paper 

from the images together! While I was waiting I started applying some 

other product, Crackle Tex, to the door and I

 will talk about that later too.

It was one more phase of the makeover.

Now we started to remove the paper~

we wet rags that resemble face cloths.

You need to be patient with this part too, 

be very gentle when removing this paper or you 

can scratch it off and have no one to blame but your impatient self!! 

 I used a sponge and Justin used his cloth and his cloth seemed 

to work much nicer than the sponge.  I had warned him 

so he was very careful, more careful than I was in fact!  

I had a few minor scratches and he had zero!

 The paper is wet and starting to rub off with the pressure of the cloth/sponge.

 See the bottom corner of the image is starting to reveal itself!

 You can see the bits of white paper that get rubbed off 

onto the floor or the edges of the wet cabinet. 

 More of the image is revealed with gentle rubbing~

All the pulp is pushed off of the image~do this slowly and carefully.

 Its so exciting when it is almost all finished at this stage.

 Still so much left to remove though.  

More rubbing...

and then when you think it is mostly all gone you 

stop and let it dry for an hour or so and look what happens:

All white paper appears again! 

So you repeat the process but this time  it is more important than 

ever to be tender and careful pulling the last layer of pulp away.  

Often you can just rub with your fingers when it is wet and it will 

roll up under your finger tips.  You can use a mist sprayer or a

 wet sponge and gently rub.  Let it dry again to see if you have 

any areas that still have white on them.  If you don't take it off it 

will mar your transfer~although when wet it looks clear, 

when it dries it can be clouded with white paper pulp. 

So go through this step 2,3, or 4 times to get it all off. 

 This is when I did a little damage~you can see a tear halfway 

on the right at 3 o'clock.  

But I don't care because I want mine to feel old and decrepit! 

 They are finally finished! 

At this point is when you might see a Halo effect. 

 That is a shiny shadow where the gel touched the wood outside of the image.

You can gently sand it back to remove it or you can dry brush

 or paint over it or do what I am going to do~cover it up with a texture.

I am now ready to go onto the next stage~

but if you were going to just do a transfer you could 

stop now and either seal with wax or Artisan Enhancements Top Coat sealer.

 The next step I took was to conceal the edges of the transfer

 so it didn't feel like it was just stuck there in mid panel....

I wanted to give it an embedded look. 

 So I used the Artisan Enhancements Crackle Tex to create a 

crusty cracked film around the image. How to use 

Crackle Tex will be coming up on another post.

 After the Crackle Tex I painted the remainder 

of the cabinet in a soft muddled effect

~dry brushing and washing my head 

off with Duck Egg and Chateau Grey.

 Then I broke out the Gilders Paste creating more of a Venetian feel. 

Purchase Transfer Gel here