This technique will show you how to breath new life into a piece of wood or a old piece of furniture. Going beyond just painting or refinishing.

Step 1: Clean Your Cabinet

This is the cabinet that we started with. It was givin to us for free. So we had no financial commitment. Perfect for a first time project. To start, we lightly sanded the cabinet. Afterwards we cleaned it with hot soapy water.

Step 2: Paint the Cabinet

After the cabinet was completly dry (we waited a day), brush on a paint color of your choosing. We chose an off white color. This was another free item. We just gave the cabinet one coat of paint. We wanted the finished product to look old and worn so one coat of rough painting did the trick. This is just personal preference. More paint could be added if desired.

Step 3: Copy Transfer

Let the paint completly dry. We waited a couple of hours.

Next generously paint on Modge Podge. Put your reversed laser image (photo copy) ink side down onto the wet mod podge. Smooth out using a squeegee or credit card (As pictured on the right). Let set 24 hours.

After 24 hours get the paper wet with a sponge and gently rub the paper off with your finger tips to reveal the ink (as pictured on the left. This part will take some time. But you can work in small areas, and take breaks as necessary.

Step 4: Completed Transfer

This is how our cabinet turned out after we got the initial image transferred. At this point you could lightly sand it to take off a bit of paint to make it look more used. Or you could seal it with a varnish.

Step 5: Distress the Cabinet

We chose to lightly sand the edges. Then rubbed a brown wax onto the surface to age it a bit more.

Step 6: Apply Your Finishing Touches

Lastly we added handles and other hardware to achieve the final pizazz!

The hindges and photo copies were the only items that we purchased for this project!