Decoupage Luggage Ideas
Luggage on its own can be rather dull and uninteresting in appearance. Suitcases and other hard-shelled luggage, especially older antique luggage, are quite durable and well-suited to art projects such as decoupage. Your decoupaged luggage can be a reflection of your travel tastes, a view into the past or simply just covered with things you find inspiring. It can be stacked or displayed as art pieces with built-in storage, or still used for its original purpose: happy travels.
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Decoupage Luggage Basics
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For best results decoupaging luggage, pick firm cases that have flat sides without extra ornamentation in the middle. Paper will adhere better to a flat surface. Select luggage that is visually interesting to you, such as old hard shell suitcases from the 1940s and 1950s. These can often be found at thrift stores and resale shops. To do the actual decoupaging, mix a little water with some school glue in a bowl, and use a foam brush to apply the liquid to the back sides of the cut-out imagery you've collected. Slap the images onto the suitcase and brush another coat of your homemade decoupage medium over the top of the image to seal it.
Travel Dreams
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If you save flyers or cut out magazine images featuring places you'd like to visit someday, why not create a piece of pleasing art out of them? Arrange images of your ideal travel destinations, such as tropical islands, European cafes or national parks. Intersperse the images with cutout text names of some of the locales. Glue them down with your decoupage medium once you're happy with the design.
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Past Travels
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All your saved maps, ticket stubs, photographs and pamphlets gathered during your travels could be turned into decoupage luggage art. If you'd like to keep the originals, copy the images first at a professional copy shop rather than using a home inkjet printer. Home printers often use ink that will run. Cut out the paper images and arrange them by destination or in any visual order you find most pleasing.
Back in Time
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In years past, it was common during travels to collect colorful stickers featuring touristy areas you've visited. Suitcases would often be decorated with stickers celebrating Miami, Las Vegas, Hollywood and the like; the more stickers, the more well-traveled the person carrying the suitcase. Recreate that look by finding public domain vintage clip-art, postcard and sticker art online. Again, print these at a professional print shop to avoid ink bleed that's common with inkjet printers.
Other Themes
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If destination-related themes are too cliche for you, any interest or hobby you have could potentially work as a decoupage project -- sports, butterflies, exotic birds, even clip-art depictions of cave paintings would all make an interesting decoupaged art piece. Even if you don't use the luggage as luggage anymore, you can store magazines and books in them as they're on display.
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