Wednesday, September 28, 2011

Photos to Canvas to Art

The gray on the walls of the Family Room creates a calm cool vibe which I just love.  But it did leave our feature wall looking like this, needig this...


And as we all know finding the perfect pieces of art is not only a long process but can be an expensive process.  However I do think that this wall, that we stare at everyday, is one of the spaces in our home truely worth the investment.  But as I said, in addition to money this takes time.  So to pass the time I came up with an inexpensive solution to fill this space and bring the pop of color it so desperately needed.



OK, so what the heck are you looking at?!?!?  Well lets back up a few steps...

On a quick trip to Chicago a few weeks back my husband and I spent a little bit of time in Millenium Park.  I brought my trusty (and wonderful) camera and snapped a few shots, including these...



I played around with them on my favorite website, Picnik and created the fantastic dot art that you see above.  Oh, which by the way look like this when you step back from them...



Then I ordered them both in the largest size Shutterfly offers - 20 x 30.  I also ordered two 20 x 30 canvases on Amazon.  (It turns out 20 x 30 is not a standard size Michaels or JoAnn's or Hobby Lobby carries.  Trust me, I called them all!)


Once everything arrived my handy assistant (my husband) and I affixed the pics to the canvases using spray adhesive.  Have you ever used spray adhesive?  I definetely recommend finding some help if you are going to use this stuff for anything larger then the size of your hand because it is seriously sticky and before you know it you will be having a Christmas Vacation Clark Griswald tree sap sticking everything to your fingers moment!  (BTW, this is on my top five favorite movies ever list!) 

But the result is great.  It turns what started out as basically posters into a little more upscale piece of wall art and it is much less expensive then getting your pictures printed on the canvas.  Which is by the way super cool and something I have done before.  But at this size it was going to cost me $80 per piece and that was just more then I wanted to spend.  Instead I spent $29 on each print and $10 on each canvas.  A much happier price for something that is supposed to be temporary.

So once all this was said and done we hung the canvases and gave each other a pat on the back cause it didn't look to shabby.  Not the final solution but not bad for the mean time!


Not to bad for $40 each.  But you gotta love when the completion of one project makes you instantly realize what the room is missing!  And in this case the answer is benches.  


Two upholstered benches a la Ballard Designs style would look amazing!  (Click here to see what we are thinking.)  Which means the hunt is on.  Let me know if you find something great (for half the price)!