Thnx Pinterest

Thanks to everyone who voted for the February Thanks Pinterest & U project – Canvas Crafts was the big winner and I’m very happy with the results.  I will be creating more of these for gifts & decorating.  I’m still working on hanging them and will post an update when I’ve found there permanent home.

PINspiration

There are some really fun ideas on my Canvas Crafts Board, eventually I hope to try a couple more of these ideas, especially the creative techniques to display the pictures. The following two pins are the best that describe the method I used.

Loved

• Easy & Inexpensive. All you need is a canvas, gel medium, paint brush, cloth and laser printed picture on normal paper.  All of the supplies are available at art/craft stores, I got mine at Aaron Brothers Art & Framing.  You can print the image on your home printer (if it is laser – not ink jet), or at a print store, I did mine at FedEx Kinkos

• Only took 20 min total (over 3 days). For the best results you need to let it dry overnight before removing the paper and again when you do the final gel medium coat to seal the picture.  I also took 2 days to rub the paper off (about 5 –6 times in total). Works for both black & white and color.  I tested out a couple of different versions – I have a larger canvas as well which I want to do eventually but wanted to practice first.

Learned

• Multiple techniques for photo transfer.  There are a bunch of techniques to transfer your photo to a canvas.  I chose this method because it seemed to be the way to maintain the canvas texture.  Here are a couple of other methods
  • Mod Podge a photo to the canvas (I think this would work nicely on wood vs. canvas – it’s cheaper!)
  • Print on tissue paper
  • Print on transparency (very similar to the technique I used)
• Don’t need to spray the photo with water.  Learned this by mistake – I forgot to do it on my first attempt but it still worked really well.  To rub the paper off I used a wet J cloth & my fingers.
• Picture is reversed. This is only an issue if the picture includes words or a logos OR if it’s a location with noticeable landmarks.  I learned this with the canvas of my grandparents farm – can you spot the issues?

Thnx

• Thank you Delia for your great  blog with step by step instructions
• Thanks @elsiecake for your  A Beautiful Mess blog; check her out on Pinterest
• As always, Thank you Pinterest for all the inspiring ideas. Not on Pinterest? Send me an e-mail thnxpinterest@hotmail.com and I’ll send you an invite (if you sign up for an invite on the site it will take a while).