Mod Podge - brush strokes and wavy paper, HELP!

We're going to DisneyWorld in a week and I decided to make my two boys handmade autograph books to take on the trip. I made the front cover out of cardstock with die cut shapes and letters glued down with a ZIG glue pen. Knowing how rough my boys are on things, I decided to try out my new Mod Podge (matte version) to seal it all up. I used a 1 inch wide foam brush and put a moderate amount on and smoothed it out with the brush as best I could. It's fully dry now, but you can still see the brush strokes. AND, the formerly flat cardstock is now buckly and wavy. Any ideas what to do about this?

My plan is/was to mod podge this mod podged cover to a piece of thin cardboard (cereal box) and mod podge another piece of cardstock on the back of the cover. The idea was that in addition to sealing the detail on the front, the mod podge would be the glue that holds the cardstock to the cardboard and hopefully add a little stiffening in the process. But now I'm not sure that mod podge is the right product to use. HELP!

How long has the mod podge been drying now? You can take it and put it under a heavy book if it has been long enough that it will not stick to it. As far as nto getting hte lines I have found some sponge rollers at our local craft store and used them. If you cant get one of those try a regular roller, jus tmake sure you really clean them or they will harden.

Good luck and have lots of fun at Disney World!

I like what cochum said too. Have a wonderful time at Disney World!!!

I think what happened is you either did not get full coverage of adhesive under all the things you put modge on top of so it buckled...or you didn't let the bottom fully dry before you did the top...unfortunately now that it is dry there is little you can do about the buckling...

when I know I am going to modge a top I use modge on the bottom to stick everything down really well and fully and then rub my hands over it like a massage until I am sure it is set and nothing it coming up...then I let it dry for 24 hours at least before adding a top coat...

most people get buckling when they run a few lines of glue on paper and put it down..then add modge on top and that doesn't work because you must have full coverage on the bottom of your project....

as far as lines I use foam too and you get the slightest little lines that are hardly noticed...

and be careful ...I am not sure if you are just doing covers and then going to have inside pages, but I have found it isn't really easy to write over modge with just anything.

As far as the bumps and air bubbles I'm not sure there's anything you can do. But with the brush strokes, you can take some very fine sandpaper and rub them out.

Actually, the buckling was with just one coat on essentially one piece of paper with some die cuts on it. The paper buckled in places that did not have anything on it. I tried putting it under a book and that seems to be helping flatten it out.

Maybe I wasn't as careful with those brush strokes as I could have been. Can I put a second coat on top of the first, and if I do, will that help to even out the brush strokes?

On the Mod Podge container it says something about wet sanding, but since I want the back side of the cover to be un-mod-podged, I don't think that's a good idea.

And no, I am not going to mod podge the pages with the autographs themselves. Only the front and back covers.

I would use a really fine sand paper and then wipe it off with a paper towel. Then add another coat of Mod Podge on top of it.

I have been using mod Podge for over 30 years and find that if I am going to use Mod Podge on a project that I use it on at least the majority of what I am doing. But that doesn't guarentee anything. So then I punt and have learned lots of different things that help. Don't get discouraged and again have lots of fun!

Putting the covers under a book (sandwiched between newspaper) overnight really helped. They are very flat now. But the brush strokes are still visible. I will try the sandpaper trick. The challenge is that the cover is not intended to be flat, since I used die cut shapes and letters. So the brush strokes are at different levels. I was thinking of buying a fine-guage sanding block, the kind that is wrapped around a sponge-like material. And then trying a roller for the next round.

let meknow how that goes for you. It has always worked for me. If you have different layers you cans try putting things like buttons under the layers to get the different dimensions back. And maybe you want the flowers to stand out some so keep the lines there like you intended them to be. ;-} wink wink.

Just be careful to not over do the sanding it won't need you to sand too much of the area.

I finally finished my Mod Podged Disney autograph albums. They turned out pretty well, even if they do have brush strokes still on them. I guess I should just chill out. Thank you everyone, especially Cochum, for all your help in getting me straightened out on this project. We leave for the World tomorrow so I got this done in the nick of time!

I uploaded photos of the autograph books to my gallery and I tried to link them here but something must be wrong because I only get several lines of HTML gobbledygook. So please go visit my gallery and check it out!

I think the autograph books came out really cute.

Your books are REALLY cute. Have a great time.