Canvas tutorial, personalizing our home

Make your own "canvas" tutorial

My canvas art going up the stairs

We have previously before this house moved 4 times in a 1 1/2 year period.  During this time every house we lived in had been for sale.  So I was used to the few family pictures set out on a table I could easily take down for showings.  I became accustomed to decorating without personalizing.  So as we had been here for almost 2 years I still had few family photos on the walls.  I also am not a huge fan of mismatched frames.  I went to hobby lobby to look for some frames for the stairway and even on sale at 50% they were going to cost me $11 a piece for the cheap ones.  That wasn't going to work for me.  So I got on pinterest to look up spacing and came accross a cool idea.

I picked up 3 foam boards (the extra thick ones, that's how they are labeled) at hobby lobby on sale 30% off (I have only used about 1 2/3 of them yet though), some spray adhesive (photo safe) and ordered some of my favorite family photos from CVS.  I had some dark brown spray paint lying around so I didn't have to buy any of that.  I laid my pictures on the board and traced with pencil.  Then removed the pictures and cut with a razor blade box cutter type knife.  I got pictures in three sizes 4x6, 5x7 and 8x10 to give it a little mix. 



Foam board pictured above

Then I took the boards outside and spray painted the sides and overlapped it to cut in a little on the tops in case it wasn't perfect on top no white would show through on the picture.  When the paint dried which didn't take very long thank goodness, I sprayed a mist of glue spray on the board and added my pictures.  This project only took me about an hour!!! (be careful not to overspray the glue)

Then one of the best parts is they are pretty light, so I used some mirror mounting double sided foamy tape to mount them up.  I hung a few up, stood back and then kept going.  Took a picture, rearranged a few and TA DA.....looks pretty cool!

I also picked up the W from Hobby Lobby for like $1.29 and spray painted it.

My 3 year old isn't used to so many pictures on the wall, we had taken them down when he was little and we were trying to sell our house.  He said there should only be 2 pictures on the wall! LOL he consistently cracks me up.  I love looking at all the fun memories on the wall each time I go up and down.  I saved some space for a hopeful Disney trip next year, one for our Hawaii trip this fall and also family portraits that we hope to get taken this fall by our favorite photographer, Shooting Stars Portraits!!! If you are local to Michigan, check them out!

What I really love even more is no nail holes in the wall and I can take them down and move them whenever!



A kind of side view of the sides of the "canvases" Excuse the hand rail on the carpet we have been working on the wainscoting up the stairs in the upstairs hall.  That project blog to come soon! :)



A close up of my new art!