Not all of us stay happy with readymade things! Often the creative souls among us want to recreate a beautiful pattern that caught our eyes and make our own piece for interior aesthetics with it.
A common example of such scenarios is to modify a plain wooden table or a raw piece of wood by decorating it with some lovely patterns.
It is easy to find a design you like from surfing on the internet and print it out. But how to transfer a pattern from paper to wood?
Let us walk you through the several methods and all the precautions associated with them right now!
4 Ways to Transfer Patterns From Paper To Wood
First of all, if you have the chosen pattern as a digital image, print it out using an inkjet or a laser printer.
However, if the method involves transfer or freezer papers, print using the inkjet printers only. This hardcopy of the lovely pattern will function as a guide for transferring it to wood.
Prepare the pattern even better by cutting off all the excess white space on it. However, if you think those spaces will help you to maintain a steady hand while tracing, keeping them would be a better idea.
1. Retracing The Back
The most common way of transferring patterns from paper to wood is retracing the back. That is because all you need to prepare this work is a chalk pencil and a ballpoint pen or stylus!
Since the process is quite simple and straightforward, let’s dive right into it without further ado!
Tools You Need
- Chalk or Pencil
- Stylus or Ballpoint Pen
The Steps
- Spread the paper with your chosen pattern on the piece of wood or the area where you want to recreate it. Place it in such a way that the design is facing down.
- Now take the chalk pencil and use it to trace the lines of this pattern. The paper should still stay inverted like before.
- Turn over the paper so that the side with chalked lines can now face the wood.
- Take the stylus or pen to now draw on these lines and retrace the pattern. Make sure the applied pressure is not too much so that the surface stays smooth and safe from accidental engravings.
2. Rubbing The Back
This is one of the easiest ways to transfer a pattern from paper to wood. All you need to do is basically rub the pattern on wood with chalk or pencil! However, remember to print the pattern using inkjet printers for this to work.
A downside to this could be the short lifespan and fragile texture of the transferred design. Since it is chalk or pencil graphite, the recreated pattern may not hold for long.
You can blow it all away with just a whiff of wind! So you will need to operate on the new copy as soon as possible after the transfer.
Tools You Need
- Chalk or Pencil
- Stylus or Ballpoint Pen
The Steps
- Place the printed pattern on your table or wooden piece so that the design faces the wood.
- Use the pencil or chalk to rub on this surface of the paper. Do it gently enough to keep the paper in place and strong enough to leave the pattern marks on the wood surface.
- Get rid of the excess chalk or graphite dust by wiping the paper gently. Doing it roughly can lead to smudged patterns and thus inaccurate results.
- Now turn the paper over so that the pattern coincides with the one on wood. Apply the stylus or pen to retrace the design gently. You will see the transfer completed once you remove the paper.
3. Transfer Paper
Transfer paper is also known as freezer paper or graphite paper. Each of these thin papers comes with a coating of pigment and wax. As we mentioned before, you will need to use inkjet printers for working with transfer papers.
They come in a wide range of varieties so that you can utilize them for transferring patterns from one medium to another.
Along with papers and woods, you can also rely on them to transfer a pattern on many other materials.
The most prominent one among them is clothes, which is why it is a popular component for designing DIY shirts.
Many creative individuals turn to transfer paper for such projects because of its affordable cost and efficient functionality. You can use it with simple household items which makes the whole process even more convenient.
Tools You Need
- Transfer Paper
- Stylus
- Scissors
- Ruler or Measuring Tape
The Steps
- Measure the piece of wood you are going to transfer the printed pattern on with a ruler or a measuring tape.
- Cut the transfer paper or freezer paper so that it is the same size as your wood piece.
- Place this sized paper between the wooden piece and your pattern.
- Use the stylus to trace the lines on your pattern in this setting. Don’t apply too much pressure otherwise the lines may get blurred and therefore ruin the clean-cut design.
- Take off the papers to reveal the pattern successfully transferred to wood. The new lines will be grayish in color. If you want darker lines, switch to carbon paper for the transfer.
- A great advantage of following this method is that you can delete any part of it with a simple eraser. As a result, you can also alter the original pattern even though the lines have already been drawn on the wood.
4. Carbon Paper
The carbon paper was originally used to make copies of typewriter documents. The typists would put a piece of carbon paper between the main paper and the additional one while working on the manual typewriter.
As a result, each character they typed would be imprinted on the first paper and copied on the second paper simultaneously.
The copied text on the latter paper carries a blue or black color by rubbing off from the carbon paper.
Following the same principle, we can transfer any pattern from a paper to a wood piece using carbon. You can purchase it from almost any shop including the ones based on crafts and office supplies.
It is also known as tracing paper because of its extensive use in outlining images for arts and crafts.
Tools You Need
- Carbon Paper
- Stylus
- Scissors
- Ruler or Measuring Tape
The Steps
- Similar to the previous method, you will need to cut the carbon or tracing paper with scissors. This piece of paper needs to fit the wood size so that you can complete the transfer of designs without any unnecessary adjustments. More adjustments leave more room for error.
- Now that you have the perfect size of carbon paper, proceed to place it on the particular area of wood where you want to see the pattern recreated. Make sure that the glossy side of your carbon paper is facing the wood.
- Place the printed pattern on this carbon paper and start tracing it. You can skip the parts which you don’t want to transfer. As a result, there is ample scope for you to modify the original pattern into something new if you want.
- This method will transfer the design on wood with dark black lines. One drawback here is that you cannot delete any of these segments with an eraser. However, you can rely on sanding pens to get rid of them.
Tips and Cautions When Transferring Patterns
1. Go For Lighter Wood
Although transferring patterns to certain areas of an already furnished table is common for creative individuals, doing so on a raw piece of wood would amplify the artistic effects.
If you are planning on including such unfinished pieces for your project, go for the lighter woods. They highlight the designs more clearly since the ink shows up darker here.
2. Mirrored Printing
For the methods where you will need to keep the patterned paper on its back. Also, always try to print the mirrored version of your design.
Otherwise, the result of your transfer will be the horizontally inverted edition of the original design you chose. Usually, inkjet printers work better for such projects.
3. Sand The Wood Surface
Before spreading any paper on the wood surface, make sure to prepare it for what’s coming. Use sandpapers of 60-grit to 80-grit variations to toughen up the wooden surface.
If you skip this step, the resulting transferred ink will not be properly absorbed into the wood and stay for a short while only.
4. Finishing Touch
When you are done with the process of transferring, there are some additional steps to take if you are not satisfied with the results. Take a sponge and make it a little damp with water.
Wipe off the newly transferred design and let it dry to redo the job. Then place wax paper over it and retrace the lines.
5. Newspapers As Substitute
If none of the wax papers are available and you are approaching the project deadline in a few hours, try to use the newspaper as a substitute.
It comes with plenty of ink by default, especially the ones with stock market updates. So keep one of those sheets in between your pattern paper and the wood for tracing or retracing.
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Conclusion
As you can see, you won’t need much to finalize the transfer of designs! Simple household stationery items like chalk, pencils, pens, scissors and rulers can help you recreate designs on wooden pieces.
Now that you know how to transfer a pattern from paper to wood, you can get started on your brand new art or crafts project!
Get ready to embrace some applauds and praises coming your way when you reveal this to others!
