YouFrame’s DIY Canvas Photo Wrap

I am a picture junkie. I love taking pictures of everything. And I am always looking for new ways to show them off. I love how great the canvases look. You know the ones you can order that are your pictures printed onto an artist type canvas? But they can be really expensive, and I don’t have a lot of control. Plus, being a crafter and DIYer, I love to do things myself.

I was recently sent the YouFrame’s DIY Canvas Photo Wrap kit. The kit comes with 3 canvases and the plastic hardware that the canvas stretches over, the double-sided tape, plus a table stand for each canvas. Looking at the plastic kit, at first, when I took it out of the box, it looked a bit intimidating. Mostly because there are pieces with holes and pieces that move. Then I read the directions, and realized, it was truly a piece of cake. It took me longer to pick out pictures than it did to make the canvas.

After you decide on a picture, print it out on the canvas. Be sure to check the settings on your printer. You want to print the picture at full size, on best quality, on borderless, if possible. Run the red double-sided tape along the edges. Remove the backing and lay the canvas down. Do four little slits on the corner, and then just roll the moving sides back into place, click the securing pieces in. You are done. It is really that simple.

Now, the instructions say to be sure to print on borderless settings. My printer, while it says it has borderless, it would not for the life of me let me put it on that setting. I do not use my printer much, it is really old, so I am just not use to fiddling with it. in addition to that, the picture I picked wasn’t even the right size. What do I mean. It was a picture that had been played with using the Istagram app. If you have ever saved a picture from Istagram, it makes them squares, not the normal rectangles. So all of my pictures had a large white section on the canvas. The first one that I wrapped, you can slightly see it down in the corner. Again, like I said, this was completely a user error, completely me, but I wanted to tell you so that way if it happens to you, you aren’t frustrated, and ready to throw the whole thing away.

In my next one, the white space was even bigger on the bottom. To fix it, I lower the picture slightly so there was more space on the bottom during wrapping, and just slight less on the top. It didn’t affect the wrapping part, but it did fix the white section. You couldn’t even see it. So, even if you have a slight hiccup during printing, don’t panic, just adjust the placement slightly, and it seems to work out perfectly.

Now I said I was not a whizz at my printer. I use it maybe once every few months, and when I do use it, it is usually just printing a document. So, to make sure my pictures look beautiful and not streaky, I needed a new color cartridge, because my old one was empty. I changed the cartridge, and forgot about the test page it prints. I ruined one of my canvases. So my last suggestion, make sure nothing else is about to print when you are trying to print your canvases.

With Valentine’s Day in a few days, the YouFrame’s DIY Canvas Photo Wrap would make an amazing last-minute gift idea for anyone. Who wouldn’t love a high quality canvas showing off those they love? Since making the 2 canvases, from picking pictures, printing, to done, took me less than 20 minutes, while my 3-year-old was laying on me, taking pictures as I went, you could easily put together 3 amazing prints in no time.

These canvas prints frame kits are available from OfficeMax, in store and online, and retail for $29.99, which is only $10 per frame. That is a great value, saving you the expense of professional framing and adding the fun of crafting. Also be sure to connect with YouFrame DIY Canvas on Facebook for tips, ideas and latest news.

Do you love taking pictures? Do you have any photo canvases in your house? have you ever given any as a gift?