Avoiding Bubbles & Tearing When Gluing a Decoupage

Video Transcript

"Hi! I'm Karen for Expert Village. Okay, now when you've finished one side, we'll go over to the other side. Now, remember never to be pulling on the napkin. It's just a gentle wiping on of the glue and sort of a spreading. The wrinkles are fine. They add texture, but if you see a bubble you want to gently smooth it out to the edge. You should never let your finger get dry. There should always be a little bit of glue on your finger. You just keep dipping your finger in the glue. If your finger gets dry and you're rubbing on the napkin without a nice lubrication of glue, you can tear your napkin. That's the one thing you want to be very careful that you do not tear your napkin. If you tear your napkin, you can in some cases very carefully ease it back into place. If you get a big hole, you can sometimes just take another piece of napkin and cut out a small piece and patch there. A lot of times you don't even notice it depending upon what the pattern is of the napkin. It's best to not to tear it in the first place. You can tell that you've got the glue on there because it no longer is white on the back of the napkin. If you see any spots that are still white, then you know that that still needs to be done. Continue down like this. Now, the napkin is never going to be completely flat and you shouldn't be bothered if you have wrinkles. As you can see, mine is quite wrinkled. That just adds to the character and the charm of the piece. I'm just going and looking for a few bubbles and we'll press those out. Just kind of ease them down to the sides."