We’ve been thinking on ways to slowly replace the mass-produced art in our home with more personal items lately. In my opinion, one of the easiest ways to do that and to bring history into a home is with family photos.
I’d been trying to decide how we could update and modernize the traditional family photo when I came across two great ideas on Pinterest. Both were ways (I thought) that I could print a photo at home and turn it into a photo canvas using supplies I had on hand.
The first project, which I mentioned wanting to try here, involved printing a photo on tissue paper and using Mod Podge to adhere it to the canvas.
(via Sarah’s Projects)
I started with an old canvas I’d doodled on and prepped it by priming over my cheesy Eiffel Tower sketch.
Then, I taped a piece of white tissue paper tightly around a piece of printer paper and fed it through my printer.
Unfortunately, our printer was a bit to enthusiastic about grabbing sheets of paper for this method. I tried printing on this tissue paper several times in all different directions before deciding this wasn’t going to work for me.
The second idea I found was to print the photo on regular printer paper and use acetone to transfer it onto the canvas.
(via Muse of the Morning)
I selected this engagement photo for our canvas art because it’s a bit more interesting than just two people smiling at the camera. I was breaking the rules a little bit by using nail polish remover instead of straight acetone (though acetone was the number one ingredient in my remover) and by opting to transfer the photo to canvas rather than paper, but I thought it just might work.
I followed the instructions carefully and even repeated the process several times, pressing harder each time, when the first pass with the acetone didn’t transfer the image.
After probably three coats and a thorough soaking, the image had barely even made a mark on the canvas.
Frustrated and ready to get that photo on the wall, I decided to just print the thing on photo paper and frame it up.
You’ll probably recognize that frame from this project a couple weeks ago. One happy accident that resulted when I stuck the photo in this frame was that it we lost a lot of the upper portion of the photo. I wasn’t sure I’d like the effect, but I think the long landscape crop works perfectly with this picture. It brings all the focus right to that kiss!
This frame has already replaced a cheapie print in our dining room, but you’ll have to wait a few more days for the zoomed-out photo of this wall. More updates will be happening in this room soon!
In other news, I’m still looking for a way to create photo canvases at home without ruining my printer. 🙂 Anybody have successes with either of the methods I tried above? Do you have any photo canvas tricks of your own? We’d love to hear!
