DIY Canvas Photos

Do you love the look of canvas photos but not the price? Yeah, me too. There are some places online that will run a sale on them definitely making them more affordable, but when I wanted to do my own version of a gallery wall a few years back, I had to get creative.

There are a million tutorials for DIY canvas photos on Pinterest, you can find one that suits your purpose. For me? I opted to go with tip from a friend years ago mixed with a little common sense and trial and error. This is what I ended up with.

First off, choose your photo. for my gallery wall, I wanted a mix of current professional photos, snapshots, and photos that have been around for a little while. For this tutorial, though I used a landscape photo Mallory took of the mountains in Colorado on her spring break trip (pre-coronavirus). It’s a great picture, and she wanted it enlarged and made into a canvas for her room. She’s no stranger to this method, as she helped with my gallery wall years ago and has since made her own for her room, and her room at college with pics of her and her boyfriend and her with roommates and friends. Safe to say it’s easy and cheap enough for a college kid to do it! lol!

So the canvas. They come in so many sizes! You can get them for a great price every day at Hobby Lobby with their coupon (and occassionally on sale!). Walmart also has them for a great price, but when I wanted to do the gallery wall, we went to Michaels when they had their big sale and bought multi packs of various sizes for $10.00! we still have some left over in the craft closet! Choose your photo and what size you want it to be, and choose your canvas. To get photos printed, I always recommend Costco photo printing. It’s a good quality print, for a very good price. Shipping is fast and for this, I always choose their matte finish which they call lustre.

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This is my gallery wall as it stands today. The engagement photo, wedding photo, and photo of the 3 kids when they were little, were from a while back, so their size was of course predetermined. I chose a canvas for each and cut (if needed) the photo to fit. You’ll notice 2 of them have a border… we needed this because the height of the photo did not reach the edges of the canvas. Mallory’s picture we used in this tutorial only needed a border on the sides. She was fine with taking the photo all the height of the canvas instead of cutting it. So before we even began, she painted her canvas black so the border on the sides would match her accents in her room. I’ll stop being so long winded and just say – use your creativity, it’s your project, do it how you want!

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Make sure your photo is the size you want for the canvas. Trim and cut if you need to.

I use matte finish mod podge and a foam ‘brush’. It is white, but dries clear! Protect your surface with a tablecloth. We use an old vinyl table cloth for painting projects and projects like this. Start by spreading a layer (not too thick) of mod podge on the canvas and on the back of the photo. Don’t go too slow because the glue definitely gets tacky pretty quickly.  Place the photo where you want it on the canvas and (making sure there is no glue on your hands) smooth the photo to the canvas. Let it dry.

Begin to apply pod modge to the top of the photo & canvas.

  1. Do not use too much. This will cause those heavier spots to look faded and almost blurry when dry.
  2. Make all brush strokes go across the canvas horizontally.
  3. Try to take your brush strokes across the whole canvas if possible.

Once you have covered the surface, lightly and evenly with strokes in one direction, let it dry COMPLETELY. If you do not let it dry completely in between layers, glue does what glue does and you could end up with clumps and icky spots that will ruin the photo.

When this first layer is completely dry, you can start the second layer by using the same process as the first except going vertically in even strokes.

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Let it dry completely yet again and voila! You’ve just made your very own canvas photo!

Have a lovely day!

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Stay at Home Camp

When my kids were little, I stayed at home with them. Well, ‘stay at home’ is maybe not the correct terminology because we (I) rarely stayed at home. I volunteered at their school and we were constantly doing things with friends like having playdates – moms and kids 🙂

One thing I didn’t do very often growing up myself, was go to summer camp. With the exception of church camp, this was just something my sister and I never did because my mom stayed home with us as well. We did, however, stay with our grandparents a lot. Each summer my sister would go to one set of grandparents and I would go to the other. We would stay for 2 weeks and then swap. I would go to the other set of grandparents and she would go where I had just been. I do remember at my grandparent’s house in Memphis one year, my grandma let me make a sign for the door to the guest room where I stayed. Kind of like my own little cabin away at summer camp. I found that picture recently, me with my sign on the door to that room I spent so many summer in… and it brought back a flood of memories. Even in my 40’s I still remember the feeling, the fun, the anticipation of spending those weeks with my grandparents. It’s something I am very grateful my parents encouraged us to do. Those memories are lasting my lifetime.

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I’m probably 8 years old here with my sign on the door of the room where I spent most of my childhood summers.

Being a family with 1 income, camp really didn’t fall within the budget and honestly, I enjoyed spending time with them when they were off school in the summers. We had a decent size back yard, a nice sized swimming pool, and plenty of toys/games/activities to keep them busy. So what was the point? Well, I learned that for them the point was that they wanted the experience, I guess. So I began to brainstorm. And looking back, there are so many more things I could have done with this idea, but they still talk about it in their 20’s so I guess it worked out just fine. The key for me was cheap or free but with a lot of memory making and education.

To make it as interactive and exciting as possible (and cost effective), I sat down and made a list of things around our city we could do for free or very little cost. i named the camp, Camp Firefly. The reason behind this name was that each of the 3 of my kids had the same kindergarten teacher and their classroom were known as the “Fireflies”. As the last Reed Kid had just completed Kindergarten and the Firefly legacy, it was an easy choice.

Then I went to go ole WalMart and Dollar Tree. At WalMart I bought a pack of men’s small white undershirts and fabric markers. At Dollar Tree I bought a pack of poster boards. That’s it. And with those items, our Stay At Home camp began. Camp Firefly!

On the first day of camp, the kids decided on their cabin names. Their cabins were, of course, their bedrooms. Jake had his own room so there was no negotiations there, he could choose whatever he wanted. And he settled on… Jellybean Cabin. The girls, however, shared a room. Surprisingly enough, there was little to no struggle getting them to agree on their cabin name. Butterfly Cabin. So with their choices made, time to decorate!

With the poster boards, they made signs to hang on their ‘cabin’ doors. I’m pretty sure their dad though I was nuts, but that was nothing new lol! Next step was camp shirts! Now, this was pre-Cricut. Well, the original Cricut was maybe out by then, but one would not be in my future for a very long time. Enter fabric markers! They had a blast decorating their shirts. They let their creative juices flow! We ate lunch on the deck, and swam in the afternoon. I would say it was a successful 1st day of camp.

Now since this was about 15 years ago, the memories have stayed but the specifics have not. After that 1st day, the rest is a blur of activities.

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One day we went to a local drive through park near us. Lone Elk Park. It’s an exapnsive park that houses Deer, Elk, Bison, Geese, and at the time, Owls. It had long been one of our favorite pass times as a family on the weekend mornings and it’s free, so it was a natural choice for a day’s activity. Near the end of the park is a shelter with picnic tables. We ate our picnic lunch there. Dad was off work so he went with us and one of their cousin’s went as well.

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The World Bird Sanctuary is also in the same entrance as Lone Elk Park. This was another free activity. Being our 1st time there (it hadn’t been open long), it was a new experience ad the kids learned a lot about the different birds. Watching the birds interact with their handlers and learning about their natural habitats was certainly interesting.

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One of our ALL-TIME favorite activities is our local zoo. We are in the suburbs of St. Louis so we are very fortunate to have access to the world renowned St. Louis Zoo! We are very fortunate to have this FREE, world-class zoo in our city. At the time the kids were little, the Emerson Children’s Zoo, located inside the zoo, was free admission before 9:00am. So that’s the 1st place we would head. Once we completed our time there, the rest of the day was spent on the rest of the zoo. Having a yearly zoo membership we could save on parking and other activities within the zoo that may have a small fee, like my favorite, the Sea Lion show. But there is an entire days worth of fascination and education with just the main zoo itself… all for free.

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There were other activities we did during our week long stay at home camp, like playing at the local park, riding bikes, swim day, and much more. Local to our area (St. Louis) there are a lot of affordable attractions to help summer or a stay at home summer camp be more fun! Six Flags, The Butterfly House, The Magic House, and the City Museum, just to name a few. Check the internet for coupons and membership savings. There is so much you can do on a budget and with a little creativity that provide those memorable moments lasting a lifetime. Be creative!

 

Have a lovely day,

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Fashion Finds – Workout At Home

Hey friends!

I am back with another great Fashion Find, in my opinion. I am an Exercise Science major so as you can probably infer, I love to work out. I have to be active and make sure to fit it into my daily routine or my whole life balance is just off. Working out is important, again in my opinion, but having good workout clothes makes it even better. I have found some good clothes along with pieces of equipment, all at affordable prices, for you to check out. Since it is more convenient for some individuals to workout at home rather than finding time to go to your local gym, I thought I would give you all an insight into what I have been doing with my at home workouts!

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Workout clothes. They make or break your experience! If you are constantly tugging at your pants or fidgeting with your shirt, you are not getting the full workout experience because you are just distracted. Marshalls, the love of my life, had an amazing deal for a workout crop top. They had full length versions as well so that is always an option! It is a super cute blue color with short sleeves, only $6.99 guys! Just amazing! Leggings have always been a struggle for me, since I live in them I am super picky. Of course I hopped on the Lululemon trend because I was desperate for a good pair and they sure lived up to the hype, BUT Walmart leggings are an amazing alternative. I got a few pair to try and let me just tell you, GREAT option. I got a cute cropped pair with side pockets for your phone, and a cute mesh design that wraps around the legs. I was skeptical at first, but I am so glad I decided to try it out because the price of $14.96 for leggings now a days was UNBEATABLE. Definitely a must on that one!

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Next up, I have some equipment I have been using. Workout equipment can be expensive, but if you look in the write places man can you find a deal. My mom and I were at Five Below just doing the usual look around type of shopping, and we found a workout section. Like who would have thought. I, of course as my mom would say, had to get some stuff to try out because the price was too good not to. I got a yoga ball, a set of 3 resistance bands (at varying resistance), and ankle weights. They were all just $5.00 each. So in total, $15 for some must have workout pieces. They are so versatile and can be used for a variety of exercises, so it was a beneficial purchase.

Lastly, my water bottle. I am glued to my water bottle, so a reliable one was key. I have been using one that my mom and I found at Walmart a few years ago before I went away to college. It definitely lasted, but with some dings, dents, and chipped paint. I have been on the look out for a good, but reasonably priced, one. Man did I hit the jackpot. We were at Marshalls, no shock there, and came across the style I have been looking for. I was skeptical because I really wanted it to last long term because I live by my water bottles. So far, this water bottle has been amazing to me and I would HIGHLY recommend it to anyone that cares to listen, or read it in this case;). It was $12.99 and most absolutely, positively worth it. They had a variety of colors, from neutrals to vibrant, and I got a coral color. I use it everyday of my life and would be absolutely lost without it!

So as promised, those are the workout finds that I have been working with recently! Above and beyond  that I have some key workouts that I have been focusing on at home to better myself. I use a note in my phone, so I will screen shot that and share below! Maybe you will find it useful and join in with me!

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Until next time,
Xoxo Mal