Painted pebble ladybugs

An easy and fun craft project, these pebble lady bugs can be used for garden decoration.

Draw the sketch of ladybug with a pencil and paint the eyes, mouth, wings. Varnish at the end.

Source : one of the DIY websites on the internet.

On Decoupage

Deriving from the French verb découper, meaning to "cut out", the craft of decoupage involves cutting and pasting black-and-white or coloured cut-outs on to a surface to create a picture or a pattern.

Influenced by Siberian felt appliqué work and ancient Chinese and Polish folk-art paper cutting, it surfaced in 17th century France as a form of furniture decoration. A century later, decoupage was well established throughout Europe as a popular pastime. Indeed, it was so fashionable that specially printed pictures were produced for cutting and applying to household and personal articles such as hairbrushes, fans and screens.

Recently, the craft has seen a resurgence of interest as a way of bringing household objects to life. Anything from trays, boxes and lampshades to frames, coat racks and even clock faces can all be treated to turn a dull surface into a work of art. Even some types of furniture such as tables, cupboards and screens can be transformed. Interesting effects can also be created. Painting a crackle glaze over a surface, once the images are stuck down, will give them a cracked, antique look. Painting on a stained varnish will blend the colours and age the appearance.

Whilst it can be used to create some extremely stunning effects, the art of decoupage is really quite simple to master. It relies mainly on an ability to select interesting shapes and colours from material that is readily available all around us. Once you know how to cut out the shapes and stick them down on the chosen object, it is your personal creativity that comes into play. Designs can be as simple or as complicated as you like, but will always look good and you can use the technique to customize virtually any article in the home.

Many of today's decoupage designs derive from the heavy floral style of the Victorian era, but there is no reason why this fashion need dictate hoe modern decoupage should look. The wide range of styles and applications will inspire one to look at unwanted magazines, decorative paper scraps, wall paper, postcards, old catalogues, colourful tissue paper, even photocopies in a new light. All these materials can be plundered and used to turn everyday objects into items of beauty. The completed work should always be finished with several coats of varnish to protect the surface.

Simple steps to decoupage are shown here:

http://www.wikihow.com/Decoupage

(Factual information collected from the book "Papercrafts and Paper fun")