DIY Photo Canvas

I recently hosted our monthly pinterest club project and decided to do a DIY canvas photo. Inspired by my husband who made one for me for my birthday. It is super cheap & easy and really looks cute. Such a fun, personalized gift for family or friends too! All you need is a canvas of any size, a laser printed (right off your printer) image either in color or black and white, matte gel (which will make several canvases), a spray bottle of water and some sort of brush, I used super cheap ones.

Keep in mind- Print your image in mirror if you want it to look the way you currently see it.

To start, apply a nice coat of gel matte to your canvas, make it thick and even, but not too thick, just make sure the whole canvas is covered.  Then, put your image face down onto the canvas, press evenly across to make sure your image is pressed down all over. Then, leave it overnight.

Come back and saturate it with water from your spray bottle, a nice misting spray. You want it pretty wet, but no puddles, wipe those off, then you just start rubbing in circles and rub the paper right off. You want your rub to be firm, but not too firm. At first the pieces will come off easily, but then you may need more water, it's ok, you can spray away, but don't get it too too wet once the paper starts coming off, because as long as you are patient with your circles, the paper will continue to come off. You will start to see a clear, crisp image and the picture will start to feel rubber like once you are done. After you are satisfied with the way the picture looks DRY (this is important, because as it dries you can really see the left over pieces of paper). Then, paint a final coat of matte gel on top and then you are finished.

Be very careful on faces, you don't want to rub them off and you can see in the corner of one of my images where it got too wet and rubbed right off.