My "Canvas" Prints

I saw this tutorial online for turning your photos into canvas-like prints for cheap. I really loved the thought of doing that for my walls. I have so many pictures I love of my kids that I never do anything with other than put in photo albums, like those recent railroad ones I took a few weeks ago. So before I could get distracted by another project, I went for it.

I bought 2 pieces of 12x48" wood (which did you know is neither 12" nor 48"??? Why do they do that???) The guy at Lowe's cut from them 6 12" blocks. I would have loved to do more, but I wanted to keep my cost low right now. The wood was just under $15, and he did the cuts for free.

I lightly sanded the rough edges down then painted the edges with some leftover black acrylic paint. I also did a border around the front and back just to make sure no raw wood would show.


I printed 6 black and white 12x12 prints at Costco for $2.99 a piece. The hardest part of this project may have been deciding what to print and which pictures to leave out. :( I had to trim about 1/4" off each picture because the wood blocks aren't really 12". (Again, why label it that if they're not???)

I then put a layer of matte finish mod podge I already owned onto one side of the wood. I placed the picture on it, did the same to the other pictures while it dried, then came back and put another layer on top of the first picture completely covering it. You can barely see the brush strokes once it dries.

I wish I had better foam brushes for this because all I had was 2 old, used ones that were falling apart and leaving debris behind on my photo. That was frustrating. I also added some mod podge to the edges just to make sure everything was sealed well.

They took less than an hour to dry. Then I hung saw tooth hangers on the back. A 6 pack was $1 at Walmart.

Then after much measuring and leveling, up on an empty wall they went for display.

Total cost for 6: About $36 (because I already had paint and mod podge)
The cheapest canvas print at Costco: $35 for ONE

I have had several people ask me where I got my canvas or tell me how nice my canvas prints look. They're shocked when I show them it's just a print put on wood. I absolutely love them. I'm thinking about doing more of all different sizes up my staircase with other pictures I love but never display. I'm hoping to get to it early next year, but I've got a thousand other projects screaming my name, too. I guess we'll see who's the loudest.