Image Transfer Coffee Gift Bag

I'm going to show you how to make a charming personalized gift bag to show your friends and family that you care. I'm going to do this using a very simple image transfer technique that is very useful in creating mixed media. This technique works on card stock, wood, canvas, etc. but doesn't work so well on non-porous surfaces like glass. You can transfer images from newsprint, magazines, or print up your own. You can pretty much use any image that isn't glossy.

What you will need:
-Scissors
-Pictures you want to transfer
-Paintbrush
-Gel medium (found in the paint section of arts and crafts stores)
-Bag, Canvas, or wood (item you want to decorate)
-Old credit card

*You may want to get adhesive to glue small objects onto your finished product like dice, playing cards, pennies, coffee beans, lace, etc.

Ok, here we go. First I recommend covering your work surface. Now you are going to paint the surface of the bag with gel medium. Apply the image (inked side down) to the painted surface. If you apply to much gel medium and it oozes out from under the picture simply wipe it away with your fingers. Now take a credit card and scrape it across the images back side for 30 seconds. This presses the ink into the gel medium, so the more you scrape the more the image will transfer. But don't take longer than a minute or the gel will dry completely and you will have a tough time getting the paper off.

Now slowly peel the paper off.You may notice ghostly white spots where the paper came off with the ink. You can gently rub it off or leave it there. If you leave it there you get a more vintage textured look. It really depends on the effect you are going for.

You can layer pictures on top of one another. Just apply more gel medium on top of the desired area and repeat the instructions above.

I decided to grunge up the bag a bit by sloppily applying black paint with a dry paintbrush (remember a little goes a long way). Smear it around, and there ya' go.

I glued coffee beans to the bottom corner.

... and added a twine bow





Voila! The finished product.

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