Roofing with Printables

Starting to cover roof with printed shingles

The roof of the $5 Dollhouse will be covered with 'asphalt shingles' from Jim's Printables.   You can find the full-size printable on this page.   Below is a sample of pattern.

A few printing tips:   

 Use good quality paper.   It doesn't have to be expensive photo paper but should be better than 'all purpose' paper.    Check your store, there's a few "in-between" quality papers available.

Use your "photo" setting on your printer to get the best print quality.

Make sure that "Fit to Page" is not selected on your printer.   If selected, the scale of your printable will be altered.

After your printout has dried, spray it with a fixative to keep ink from smearing.   I used a fixative designed for paper.   It's function is to keep pencil drawings from smearing.   It will give you a matte finish.   Tip:  To keep it from flying around, I taped paper to a large piece of cardboard first.

Once roof is completely covered with paper pattern,  I will spray roof again with a protective top coat!

If you want a glossy finish for your printable, cover with clear adhesive shelf paper.  ("Contact" paper)   No need to spray a fixative first if you are covering with shelf paper.   Of course, you probably wouldn't want a shiny finish on the roof.  This tip applies mainly to flooring and other printables.

Your printer may leave a white border when it prints out a full sheet of pattern (i.e. shingles).  Just cut off all the white parts before using.   Cut carefully.   These full sheet patterns are designed to exactly match up the repeat pattern along the edges just like real-life wallpaper.   Don't cut off too much!  ;-)

The $5 Dollhouse has a lot of roof area!  It's also wider than 11"....so this is going to take a lot of sheets of 8.5"x11" paper!    It took 3 sheets just for one side!