Decoupage, the art of decorating a surface with cut-out printed images, was a very popular pastime in the 18th century. In their leisure time, people cut and pasted prints specifically reproduced for this purpose onto boxes, fans, table tops or screens. These objects were then given many layers of varnish to conceal the edges of the paper, so that the finished pieces resembled oriental lacquer-work or gave the impression of being hand-painted.
In the 19th century, Victorians did much the same thing, replacing the classical motifs and chinoiserie used in earlier times with the scraps of their own era. Floral motifs were liberally used to fill gaps and disguise hard edges.
Another style often used in boxes and trunks at the time entailed covering the entire surface area with scraps, overlapping them and positioning them apparently at random, although great skill was actually needed to produce a balanced, pleasing appearance.
The Victorians attached considerable importance to the celebration of Christmas and a wide range of Christmas scraps was produced. These scraps featured angels, winter scenes, children and, most popular of all, the figure of Father Christmas with his bulging sack of toys. These reliefs were pasted onto cards and boxes and were made into Christmas decorations of all kinds.
Scraps, of course, had a particular appeal to children and a vast number of nursery reliefs were available, some featuring beautifully illustrated nursery rhymes such as 'Little Bo Peep' and 'Little Jack Horner'. Others showed fairy stories, alphabets, fables, pictures of animals and comical caricatures.
Children in many countries continue to make use of scraps for traditional hobbies: scraps are still swapped, collected, arranged in scrapbooks or used for illustrating personal messages in poetry albums. Mamelok has been satisfying the demand by constantly introducing new scraps of a contemporary but timeless nature, and by adding favourite characters such as Peter Rabbit and Vera the Mouse to the scrap repertoire.
In recent years, a huge revival in the popularity of decoupage has resulted in strong demand for scraps among adults too. With an unrivalled archive of Victorian and Edwardian originals to draw upon, Mamelok is able to re-issue these designs, grouped in themes, on the famous Golden Sheets which are sold all over the world and feature constantly in books and magazine articles about decoupage. New themed Golden Series sheets are introduced regularly, with the archive material often selected in response to requests from decoupage artists and the public.
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