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Magazine Collage (Make with Any Design!)

Learn how to make a magazine collage the easy way! You can use this decoupage collage on canvas method to create any design you like. Perfect for new crafters.

Skills Required: None. Even if you’ve never decoupaged before, you’ll be able to do this project. The scraps are small, so you don’t really have to worry about wrinkles.

DIY Magazine Collage

Orange you glad we found this wall art tutorial? Heh heh. If you are anything like me you struggle to find new things to decorate your house with.

Also, if you are anything like me you have a million old magazines that you have just sitting around collecting dust. You’d like to try a recycled craft with the mags perhaps, but you aren’t sure what to do.

Thanks to this Mod Podge tutorial, we can solve both of our decorating problems with a fun magazine collage. This canvas idea is part of our easy crafts for adults collection as well as our crafts for teens, if that tells you anything. It’s going to be easy to put together!

Magazine collage on canvas

Magazine Collage Art

Before we dive in, let’s answer a few commonly questions you might have about this project. If you’d like to skip this FAQ and get to the how-to, scroll down past this section. Otherwise, this is what people want to know.

Will the magazine ink bleed?

If you’re using a regular magazine like Cosmopolitan or People or Better Homes & Gardens, there shouldn’t be any bleeding. There’s typically a coating on magazine pages. Actually, just so you know – newspaper works fine too. And book pages!

Will the magazine pages wrinkle?

The larger the cut pieces are, the more susceptible they are to wrinkles. It’s really easy to do a Mod Podge collage with smaller pieces like you’ll see in this project. Don’t be afraid to use enough Mod Podge. It will dry clear and you can wipe the excess away.

collage on canvas

What should I paint the canvas with?

Use acrylic craft paint. You can also use chalk paint, or spray paint. The only paint you really need to avoid is latex paint. It bubbles when Mod Podge is applied in a lot of cases.

What other surfaces can I do this collage art on?

This decoupage collage can be done on canvas as you see here – but it can also be done on wood, metal, terra cotta, glass. You can even do a collage on fabric with small bits of fabric. I’d love to see what you decide to collage with and on what surfaces!

Which Mod Podge formula should I use?

Any of them will work, it just depends on what you’re looking for in terms of finish. See what the finishes look like here. I’d use Gloss, Matte, or Satin.


Are you ready to try a decoupage collage with magazines? Make an orange, some other fruit, vegetable, or animal – I can’t wait to see. Learn how to do it using the tutorial below.

Yield: 1 canvas

Magazine Collage

Magazine collage art

Learn how to make a collage with Mod Podge on canvas! This magazine collage art is easy enough for anyone to make, and it can be personalized.

Prep Time 1 hour
Active Time 3 hours
Total Time 5 hours
Difficulty Easy
Estimated Cost $5

Materials

  • Canvas - 12" x 16"
  • Acrylic paint
  • Mod Podge Gloss
  • Magazines - several with colorful pages

Tools

  • Scissors
  • Paintbrushes
  • Pencil
  • Craft knife
  • Bowl or object for tracing

Instructions

  1. Place the canvas on your work surface and draw your design. To create the tree, place a bowl or other round object in the center of the canvas and trace with a pencil.Drawing the top of the tree on canvas with a bowl and pencil
  2. Draw additional details, like a trunk and branches. Keep the details rather large so that it is easy to cut the magazine pieces to fit the area.Drawing the trunk of the tree as well as the branches
  3. Once the design is prepared, decide on a color palette. Go through the magazines and choose the pages that reflect your color palette – in this case, blues, browns, and greens.Stacks of magazines and magazine pages
  4. Cut squares and rectangles from ½” to 1” width using the scissors. Start piles of the different colors. You don’t need to cut a ton because you won’t know quite how many you’ll need, so just do enough to get started.Small pieces of cut magazine pages
  5. Choose an area on the canvas to start. Begin decoupaging the magazine pieces to the canvas using a three step method. Apply Mod Podge to the canvas, place down the piece and smooth, then wipe away the excess Mod Podge with the brush.Gluing the sky pieces around the tree shape
  6. Work your way around the main design, adding pieces of magazine in various shades of blue. Space them out and overlap in various ways so the pieces don’t look like shingles.Decoupaging down magazine pieces around the tree
  7. Once you are finished outlining the main shape, let dry for a few minutes.Tree collage with magazine pieces around the main shape
  8. Continue adding paper pieces in the sky area on the canvas with decoupage medium. Space the pieces out randomly.Finish adding the sky around the tree
  9. Finish the sky by adding more pieces until you have filled in the entire white sky area of the canvas. Let dry. Then apply a coat of Mod Podge over the top of the sky area. Let dry.Finish the sky and seal with a layer of Mod Podge
  10. Grab the green magazine squares and begin decoupaging the top of the tree. Place Mod Podge down, place down the squares, and work your way around the circle.
  11. Note where the tree branches are or take a picture with your phone. Cover up the green area (the top of the tree) with magazine pieces. Let dry completely.Filling in the top of the tree
  12. Use the brown pieces to fill the tree trunk area in. Apply Mod Podge, put down the piece and smooth, then wipe away the excess.Filling in the trunk with magazine squares
  13. Choose the places on your collage canvas to start your branches, and apply brown squares or rectangles at these points.Applying the brown magazine squares using Mod Podge
  14. Choose some pieces for the branches, and trim them down on the sides with scissors so that they progressively get smaller as you apply them to the collage.Cutting magazine squares to fit as branch shapes
  15. Continue adding the branches until they are the desired length. Wipe away excess Mod Podge with the brush and let dry.Adding the branches to the tree
  16. When all the areas of the magazine collage are filled in, apply a layer of Mod Podge over the entire top of the canvas and let dry.Wet layer of Mod Podge over the magazine collage art
  17. Turn the canvas over and trim the edges of the pages off with a craft knife.Trim the back of the canvas with a craft knife
  18. Your canvas is ready to hang!Finished magazine collage

Notes

Time is just an estimate and varies greatly depending on a variety of factors. like the size of pieces you cut as well your design! Estimate about one Lifetime movie worth of cutting.

Did You Make This Project?

Please leave a rating or share a photo on Pinterest!


If you enjoyed this collage on canvas, I’d love for you to check out these other ideas:

Becky Worthen

Wednesday 29th of September 2021

I absolutely love these videos and articles in ideas and learning new things with Mod Podge. So many wonderful things I'm going to be making for Christmas gifts this Year. I love the bottle and vintage label ideas. Thank you a million times....

Jessica R

Friday 7th of June 2013

awesome!!!

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