Vintage Style Photo Canvas DIY

Today I'm sharing how I made some fun and easy photo canvases...

What you will need...

A stretched and primed canvas (available from good art & craft shops) I used a 5" x 7" canvas board
Gel Medium (I used Golden regular gloss gel)
A big paintbrush (to apply the medium smoothly, a 1" brush was the perfect size for my canvas)
A laser print out or copy of your photo (ensure that it is a toner based printer or copier, available in most offices / libraries etc...)

To make...

If your photo is on your computer, start by flipping it over (the picture will come out backwards otherwise, this may not matter for a lot of pictures but anything with words etc... will look a bit strange) print onto a laser printer or copy with a photocopier - I made my picture black and white as we have a black and white laser printer here in the office (our colour ones are inkjet)

Prepare a surface to work on - you may want to use a craft sheet if you have one - and begin by painting your canvas with a thick layer of gel medium all over

Place your picture face down on top of the canvas and gently smooth out any air bubbles, pressing it  down into the medium

Leave to dry for a few hours (overnight preferably) and once dry spray the canvas with water

Using your fingers, rub gently to remove the paper - you should start to see your image revealed! don't rub too hard or you could damage your image (some bits will come off anyway) and keep spritzing with water as you go

Once your image is revealed, leave the canvas to dry for about 20 minutes - if your image goes cloudy, like this...

then you aren't done yet! the cloudiness is caused by small paper fibres left behind, so spritz once more and rub gently to get them all off, it may take a couple of tries to get your image perfectly clear...

Once you have finished, apply another coat of gel medium and leave to dry. It's as simple as that!

Here are the two I made...

One of Fuzzybutt (of course!) and one of mine and my sisters wonderful (ahem! it was the 90's be kind!) fashion choices. I love that they aren't perfect and have that vintage slightly worn around the edges look to them, they look great in my little photo corner :o)

I hope you'll give them a go :o)

Thank you for dropping by today!
Sarah x