Faux Stone Arch and Stove Back Splash From Scrapbook Paper!!!

Yup! Scrapbook paper! :-) I know what probably comes to your mind first “Scrapbook paper…in the kitchen…over the stove? How will it hold up?” I’ve had several friends and family members see it and ask the same thing already. The secret is that if you cover something with several coats of Mod Podge, (or the homemade alternative)it will stand up to just about anything!! :-) I have had this up since before Thanksgiving and it looks the same as it did the day I finished it. I’ve cooked several holiday meals and my every day cooking as well. I’ve wiped it down with several different  cleaners and no problems from them either!
I got the idea from a fellow homeschooling mom’s kitchen. I had to go by her house to pick something up and we walked through her kitchen…I immediately fell in love with her stove area! It’s all stone, with an arch over it. She has a pot filler faucet (confession: I’d never seen one of those before) that I wish I could have had 10 years ago when I fixed spaghetti and macaroni and cheese for 12 people on a regular basis! Her stone is on the darker side as are her cabinets. I would love to share a picture of it here, but don’t feel like I know her well enough to say  “ummm, can I take a picture of your kitchen to share on my blog?” So I searched and couldn’t find anything close, but this may give you an idea of the archway, but her stone was on the back and sides of her alcove…

I really want something similar when we do our kitchen upstairs but I’m also trying to find ways to add little touches of what I want while we are still living in our basement. So, I started thinking of a way to come up with the “look”. I started out looking at stone wall paper.

It’s pretty but, for the small amount that I needed for my area, the price was too high. I remembered seeing river rock and even brick scrapbook paper, so the next time I was in Joann’s I decided to have  a look. I found this…

…on sale for .20 a sheet so I took a  guess and bought 15 sheets. As usual, I didn’t take a proper before picture I got into a big hurry once I got started. I took down the old range hood and moved the stove out. Hubby cut an arch out of luan plywood for me. I started taking pics at this point:
Please ignore the out dated cabinet color and hardware. They are future projects. :)

I had read how to make homemade Mod Podge on Life in Rehab, and  I thought for a project of this size I would try out Sunny’s recipe for Homemade Decoupage Medium. Here are all the ingredients you need: Glue, water and a container to mix it in!

Most of the sheets went up whole but I had to cut a few with my paper cutter.

I brushed my glue mixture on the back of the paper and stuck it on the wall, smoothed out the wrinkles (there weren’t many) and then brushed over the top of the paper  with more. This is “inside the arch”.

I played cut and paste until I got to the arch. I don’t have a very steady hand when I’m under pressure, and I knew I didn’t have enough paper for any mistakes (the nearest Joann’s is an hour and a half away!). So I put glue on the back of the paper and had my son, who has a very steady hand, cut the paper off along the bottom edge of the arch. Then I coated the outside with more glue mixture. I gave it about four coats.

 

Here it is while it was drying, back in November.

 

And here it is today

If I had it to do over again, I would make sure that I didn’t end up with all my seams right in the middle. But unless you are really looking for it, it’s not the first thing that catches your eye. Please excuse the glare, it’s the basement lighting. I am happy with my “stone work”, especially with the price….$3.00 and a little Elmer’s glue! It will keep me happy ‘til we get our kitchen done upstairs and I can have the real thing! ;-)

I’ve had a few projects completed since before Thanksgiving and this is one of them. I’m going to be sharing the others and then hopefully keep going with the projects and I try to do a room by room redo of our basement this year.

Have you ever used scrapbook paper for a project that had nothing to do with scrapbooking?

I’ll be sharing my “stone work” at these awesome parties! Click on the button below to see a lot of amazing projects!