Home Made Modge Podge

So I have a big project spanning several canvases that I am S.L.O.W.L.Y working on. The background is all collaged but I cannot afford to go out and buy tons of modge podge for the project. Pinterest has about 7,000 different pins for diy modge podge so I thought I would give it a go.

I wish I could find the original blog I found the recipe on - but I appear to have lost it.

These were the ingredients:
1.5 Cu Flour
.25 Cu Sugar
.25 Tsp Olive Oil
1 Cu Water

Mix ingredients together on the stove at low heat. From some bloggy research I did I found the oil is for sheen and spreadability. Here is the way it looked when I pulled it off the stove:

The blogs all say to find a tightly sealable container. But I also want to be able to apply it quickly and easily and to be able to shake the mixture back up (since water/flour mixtures tend to separate over time.) I chose a cheap condiment bottle. Also, I wanted my glue to have some opacity to it. I added a little bit of paint (from a sample container from Lowes) that I knew would match the room I intend to place the art in.

Here is my set up. (The can of coke is optional and not recommended.)

I used the condiment bottle to add the paste to the canvas and a thick brush to spread it around. I wanted to collage pages from the Bible (sacrilegious I know) so I went to the local thrift store and found several different bibles with different texture pages. 

Interestingly I found that thinner pages (that are more like tissue paper) didn't adhere as well. Over all the homemade paste seemed to work pretty well. Like any modge podge project I would like to go over the canvas again to seal the edges and then after all painting etc is done, use clear finishing spray to protect the whole project. 

Here is my canvas two weeks later: (My lovely assistant held the canvas for me.)

This is my lovely assistant:

Overall I give this diy effort an A. I am pleased with the outcome and will be using this on my larger project (stay tuned!)