DIY inexpensive wall art

[ender]

Something I always have liked is artwork like:


What I haven't liked is the ridiculous price tag almost always associated with it if you want to customize it with your own photo.

Originally inspired by this thread on AVS Forum several years ago.

Spoonflower lets you print fabric which is inexpensive. For a 27x18" piece of high quality print it was about $12 shipped. Larger pieces are not that much more expensive. Most of it is less than $20/yard (with 50+ inch width) which is very affordable for a high quality print. I chose to use SILKY FAILLE • FAT QUARTER as my piece due to the AVS forum recommendations.


At hobby lobby you can buy these stretcher strips - http://shop.hobbylobby.com/products/...-strip-592063/ - in a variety of sizes. 8,9,10,11,12, and then 14-40 in 2" increments, as well as 48". The pieces fit together (you probably could staple/glue them but I didn't even bother) to make the frame and are CHEAP. The four pieces for a 8x10" frame set cost me a total of about $3.00 which is obviously cheap. Even if I went with a 48x24 frame I think the total would be around $15/frame. The edges are raised so only a small portion of the fabric on front is touching, minimizing see through.

I did some of this as a preliminary test to see how well this would work for future larger gifts.  Final product (also available in an imgur album with higher resolution pictures):



I'm not really sure what the lines on that image are, that appears only in the picture (you could probably steam or use wrinkle releaser to get rid of any actual wrinkles).

They fit together like this:


After wrapping the fabric I used a tack stapler (this was like $10 at Hobby Lobby too) to tack the fabric.



The corners were surprisingly easy to make look good.



It turns out really nice.

It's pretty opaque.. unless you have sunlight coming from behind :)



I tried to take a zoomed in picture to show the difficulty in seeing the frame behind the fabric. It wasn't very successful since unless you have light streaming through it's really, really hard to see. On another attempt I pulled the fabric really tight and lighter area showed through slightly. Leaving it much looser (though still tight, I didn't stretch it hardly at all) stops this pretty effectively. I imagine if you had a white image you could see a faint outline of the frame.




The total cost was about $3 for the frame, probably $0.001 for staples, and maybe $3 or so for the fabric (I had printed a variety of test images too on the swatch and this was probably only about 1/4 of it. If I do this in the future I will order a larger piece).

Making a huge print would still be very cost effective.

[StangStache]

Wow that's really cool.  I've always wondered if it'd be much cheaper to do canvas prints yourself.  I'd love to see how it goes if you do something larger.  Keep us updated.

[falcondisruptor]

Nicely done!  We are in need of art that suits us better.

If it's bothering you that you can see the frame, maybe you could put another fabric down first to thicken things up. 

[StangStache]

If it's bothering you that you can see the frame, maybe you could put another fabric down first to thicken things up.

That's a great idea.  I wonder if one of those thin foam sheets would work and emulate the mushy feeling of the commercial prints?

[horsepoor]

That's pretty cool!  I actually just used ModPodge to wrap fabric around some foam core, and it worked great, so yes, I think you could back your fabric with that, and then use ModPodge if you want it to be a smooth surface instead of just plain fabric.  This would also sort of glue the corners together, which I think would give a cleaner look around the edges.  Great idea!

[greenmimama]

I'm a bit confused by your post, I love canvas work I usually wait for a great sale and get an 16x20 for about $25

Did it come out clear enough for you to use it for a picture of a person?

How did you print it on fabric, more details please, thank you.

[ender]

If it's bothering you that you can see the frame, maybe you could put another fabric down first to thicken things up.

That's a great idea.  I wonder if one of those thin foam sheets would work and emulate the mushy feeling of the commercial prints?

I think you might be able to see through and get a weird background color if you do this.

That's pretty cool!  I actually just used ModPodge to wrap fabric around some foam core, and it worked great, so yes, I think you could back your fabric with that, and then use ModPodge if you want it to be a smooth surface instead of just plain fabric.  This would also sort of glue the corners together, which I think would give a cleaner look around the edges.  Great idea!

That's not a bad idea either.

I'm a bit confused by your post, I love canvas work I usually wait for a great sale and get an 16x20 for about $25

Did it come out clear enough for you to use it for a picture of a person?

How did you print it on fabric, more details please, thank you.

I actually printed a picture of my fiance and myself, too. It looks really good - really surprising.

I printed the fabric at spoonflower.com after customizing the print in Gimp. You have to make the image as 150 pixels = 1 inch, so I resized everything to be a 27x18" canvas. This helped a fair bit.