Monday, February 20, 2012

Canvas photos

 Have you seen those awesome photographs printed on canvas. Yeah, they are everywhere these days. But have you seen the prices? Outrageous - $100 and up.  I've been drooling over the "Groupons" offering some good deals but even at half price they could be really pricey, especially when I want 4 of them. So I did the next best thing. I did it my self for a tenth of the price! And they look amazing! Here how we do it.
Here is what we need
Photo
Siccors
Ruler
Pen
Canvas
Black paint
Mod Podge 
Wax Paper
Sponge brush
Sponge

Find a photo and have it enlarged - BIG! I took my photo's to Costco and had them blown up to 16x20 - each photo was $5.75. Which is an amazing deal for the high quality the pictures are. Cut it down to fit on your canvas, I cut mine just an 1/8" smaller so that it wasn't right to the edge. I knew I wanted the picture to be square and I originally wanted a canvas 14x14 but of course it was hard to find. So I got a canvas that was 16x16, I figured the bigger the better and luckily my picture was at already that size.  The canvas was $9.99 (with 50% discount).
 Then, paint the edges of the canvas black, I also painted in a little bit on the front of the canvas just so there would not be any white showing at all. Paint (already had) = free

 Next I put a good layer of Mod Podge all over the front of the canvas. Also, already had this = Free.
 I put the wax paper down so that when I set the photo face down it would not get any crap on it. Then I also, put a layer of the Mod Podge on the back of the photo and carefully matched it on top of the canvas. 
 Since my canvas is 2" thick it was a little hard to push it down, so I flipped it over so I could smooth it out and glue it down tight. Make sure to put a towel underneath.
 Next, I added a thin layer of Mod Podge on the front of the photo. It goes on creamy but it will dry clear so don't worry. I like how it adds a little layer of texture to the photo, more like real canvas.


 Last step, I took the dry sponge and put a little amount of paint around the edges just to blend in the picture.
I love, love, LOVE how it turned out. They look so amazing and drum roll please.... total cost $15.74! That probably wouldn't even cover the shipping from the online stores. What a truly amazing project! I have to give a shout out to my friend {britneyb} for taking these amazing pictures. I'm so glad that I finally am getting around to displaying them in my home. Go and check her out! Want to see them all finished and hanging on the wall?? I will post about that soon.

Lisa

1 comment:

Al Hannah said...

Thanks so much. Great little tutorial. I have 9 canvasses to do, and now I feel confident that mod podge is the right product!