How-to Tuesday: Concert Ticket Wall Art!

It is absolutely no secret that one of my favorite things to craft with is Mod Podge. It's so simple and quick to make pretty much anything awesome out of this awesome brush glue. As a kid, I started saving my movie tickets. That led to saving my concert tickets. Fast forward to a little earlier this year: I was sick of taping my concert tickets to every refrigerator I've ever had, so I wanted to do something else with them. I remembered that I had a canvas and some Mod Podge and voila!

You will need:

• A pile of old tickets (it doesn't need to be concert tickets)
• Mod Podge, either Matte or Gloss original, and the purple-labeled Hard Coat
• An old brush or sponge applicator
• Canvas to fit as many tickets as you have

It's all pretty simple! Here's your steps!

1. Grab your tickets, canvas, brush (or sponge) and Mod Podge. 
2. Organize your tickets however you deem fit on your canvas (I did one large rectangle, then a smaller one, and a smaller one yet, etc.)
3. Use your original Mod Podge (with either the yellow or orange label) and lay down some glue on both the canvas and the ticket. I would do one rectangle at a time. 
4. Once your entire canvas is covered, I'd do a layer of the Hard Coat just to make sure none of the edges come unglued.
5. Hang up and enjoy!

One tip I will give you on this is not to use a hair dryer to try and get the glue to dry faster. I did it (as you can tell from the random black splotch), and it changed the color of the heat-sensitive paper. 

And there you have it! Another fun way to use Mod Podge. Let me know what you did with yours in the comments, check back next week for another How-To Tuesday, and don't forget to follow if you're enjoying what you're reading!

How-to Tuesday: Decoupaging Furniture!

As a pastime, and as far back as I can really remember, I've been using Mod Podge to craft all sorts of things! Little storage boxes, formed rabbits, all kinds of stuff. It was tissue paper and creepy animal forms when I was a kid, but it's a skill I've maintained through adulthood. One of my favorite things to decoupage is furniture. And it's very easy to do! So, let's get goin'!

You will need: 

• Comic books or other paper to glue onto the furniture. I go through the $0.25 bins at comic shops and usually come up with some good stuff.
• Mod Podge! There are all different kinds of it on the market, but I typically use just the plain Matte in the yellow bottle. The Gloss comes in an orange one. For these types of projects, you want to have regular Mod Podge, as well as Hard Coat Mod Podge. That ensures your project will stay awesome for years to come.
• An old paint brush or sponge to apply the glue with. I say an old one because I wouldn't personally go out and buy a new paint brush just for this purpose - it's glue, after all!
• (Obviously) a piece of furniture to apply paper to. This table I actually found next to the dumpster at my apartment and had painted! You never know where you'll find a great piece, so you might as well just swallow your pride and dumpster dive once and awhile.

As I did before, I'll give you the steps and show photos of my progress as I went through them.

1. First things first: tear the pages from the comics and rip the pages into pieces. You'll want jagged edges since it adds to the collaged look. If you really want to, you can cut the edges, but I've personally never done it. 
2. Brush some glue onto a flat area of the table or whatever you're working on. Lay down a few pieces of your ripped paper, and Mod Podge over all of them. 
3. Continue until you have the largest, flattest portion of your table finished.
4. On the sides, you're going to want to do the pieces one by one, especially for routed areas and parts that aren't 100% flat. It would be smart to use your fingers to press the pieces down. Also, make sure to glue under any lipped areas of your furniture for a more complete look. 
5. Once you have covered all you want to, put an entire layer of Mod Podge all over the entire thing. 
6. Let the full covering of Mod Podge dry, and then use Hard Coat Mod Podge just like you did in the previous step. 

And you're done! Make sure to let the glue dry before you put your table into use, but once it's dry you can use it for anything (I made a computer table). Following this, you can clean your table's surface with household spray cleaner. Onto the photos!