DIY Home Decor with Cavallini Paper

The Cavallini display is one of my favorite parts of the store. With vibrant stickers, cool sticky notes to enliven the work day and adorable note cards to send to family members each holiday there's quite a variety of unique paper supplies up front.

I love, love the Italian paper. Although the paper is labeled as "decorative wrap" it seems just too cool to use as something so quickly discarded. Instead most of our paper customers plan to hang them on the walls as international posters.

In fact, the international flair of  Cavallini inspired the theme of my new living room, the centerpiece of which is a new, recovered ephemera table: 

Envious of my table's awesomeness? There's no need to be. Creating your own is quite simple.

DIY Cavallini Decoupage Table

Supplies:
1/2 a bottle of Modge Podge Glue for all surfaces (it comes in the orange bottle).
Brushes for the Modge Podge
Ikea table or any ugly piece of furniture in desperate need of a makeover
Scissors
2 cans polyacrylic coating (the spray version gets everywhere so we painted it on).
Enough Cavallini Italian paper to cover the surface (we used four: Ephemera London, Ephemera New York, and both versions of the Ephemera Paris).

Step 1: 
Our goal was to create a table top that looked like a giant collage of all three cities. To try to avoid a "Paris" corner and "London" side we cut each paper into fourths along the outline of the collaged paper and then pieced them together like a giant jigsaw puzzle.

Once you get the pattern you like loosely tape it together. The Modge Podge glue will dry clear and blend in the tape well as long as you don't go too crazy.

Step 2: 


PAINT THE MODGE PODGE ON THE SURFACE BEFORE SETTING DOWN THE PAPER!!!


Let's just say we learned the hard way that keeping the paper on the table and lifting up corners to glue as you go results in a lot - A LOT - of bubbling. We ended up having to let the glue dry and then use a box cutter to de-bubble areas. Don't let this happen to you.

Step 3: 
After coating the table with glue, carefully place the paper on top. Be sure to smooth it out as you go to prevent bubbling (see Step 2).

Step 4: 
Now that the paper is properly stuck down paint a couple of layers of Modge Podge on top to seal everything in.

Step 5: 
Let dry overnight.

Step 6: 
Once the table is completely dry it's time to seal in your work for good. Paint on a couple of coats of polyacrylic, make sure to let each coat dry in between. This part took a few days: We painted in the morning, on our lunch break and after dinner. You'll want to do this in an open area as the fumes from the polyacrylic can be intense.

Step 7: 
Let dry completely and enjoy

Before

After