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Decoupage Chair for Your Favorite Book Lover

Learn how to decoupage a simple wood chair! This decoupage chair was created for a book lover – use any graphics you like with this method.

Decoupage Chair for Your Favorite Book Lover

Hey!  It’s David from Cheltenham Road.

Those of you that have followed my blog for a while know that when I started out my focus was on fixing up furniture. My business focus has changed since then but I truly miss working on furniture.

My friend Jennifer’s little girl Violet is awesome and she loves to read (well, technically she loves to be read to, but I’m sure that shortly she’ll take over the reins herself).

So, when I read Amy’s post about using Furniture Mod Podge AND almost immediately stumbled across a little IKEA chair I knew exactly what I wanted to do!

DIY Decoupage Chair

For my DIY chair, I gathered:

Unfinished Wood chair, book images printed out, white spray paint, sandpaper, and Furniture Mod Podge
  • IKEA chair
  • White spray paint
  • Hard Coat Mod Podge
  • Print outs of my favorite children’s books (laser prints)
  • Sandpaper
  • Sponge brush (not pictured)
  • Craft knife (not pictured)

I gave the chair a light sanding and cleaning and a couple of coats of spray paint and set it aside to dry.

While the chair dried I got to work on the collage.

For my graphics a Google search provided me with numerous options for high resolution images to use.

(I’m afraid Copyright Law prevents me from sharing the graphics with you as a download but you can do the same process, scan your own favorite book covers or use any kind of pre-printed paper) 

To put together the collage I opened MS Word and changed the margins to create a custom-sized sheet of paper that equaled the size of the chair seat.

Book cover graphic

The seat was a bit bigger than what I could print on a single page so I separated the collage into two sections and printed them out on plain old legal sized paper.

This DIY chair makeover is perfect for the child (or adult) that loves reading! Use images of book covers and decoupage medium to make this fun project.
Book cover graphic part two

I also downloaded and resized some additional book titles for the back and sides of the chair and then just cut everything into strips that matched the size of the various slats

Cut out images of book titles along with a ruler and craft knife

I attached them using Furniture Formula Mod Podge and set it all aside to dry.

Applying book cover images to the top of a chair with Mod Podge and a foam brush

When everything had dried I went back in with my craft knife to trim away any excess paper and then did some very light sanding just along the edges just to make sure there were no little pieces of paper that might get pulled up with use.

I sealed all the paper surfaces with two coats of furniture Mod Podge (sanding very lightly between coats).

And the decoupage chair is ready to go!

This DIY chair makeover is perfect for the child (or adult) that loves reading! Use images of book covers and decoupage medium to make this fun project.

I was kind of amazed at how quickly this decoupage chair project came together. Honestly, the majority of time went into finding the graphics and waiting for things to dry (fortunately I had snacks!).

This DIY chair makeover is perfect for the child (or adult) that loves reading! Use images of book covers and decoupage medium to make this fun project.

As an added bonus my somewhat ancient and very well worn loved teddy bear will now finally have his shot at internet fame!

DIY decoupage chair

I truly hope Jennifer (and more importantly Violet) will like this decoupage chair!

I hope you will consider following me on my Cheltenham Road Blog where I’m always working on some new decoupage furniture idea! I’d also love for you to visit these other posts:

Wini

Thursday 11th of February 2021

This is a wonderful idea, especially personalized touch for the child. Great job and definitely great way to use the pod podge. I enjoyed reading the post :D

denise

Tuesday 22nd of March 2016

Wonderful job!