In the last few years we've have several sets of family pictures taken. The first set was taken in our yard and it was not only our immediate family (Mike, I and the Kids) but we also included our Parents and our Grandparents. The second set was just our immediate family and those were taken at Mesker Park Zoo during one of Josh and Taylor's visits home. The third set was to be taken at Goebel Farms in the pumpkin patch, again, during one of Josh and Taylor's visits home. Unfortunately we were not able to get our entire immediate group together at the same time for the last set of family pictures so it had to be done in different shoots. The first shoot was done the day Josh and Taylor were leaving, we just took some pictures in our yard. The second shoot was done at Burdette Park.
Ever since that first family photo shoot in our yard back in 2012, I've wanted to create a canvas gallery for my wall. I had looked and looked at them and laid out several, but just could not bring myself to pay the price for having the canvases printed. If I were just doing a single canvas or maybe even just a couple, I could probably talk myself into paying the price but the galleries I was laying out were 10 pictures or more and I could just not bring myself to pay that much money. Especially since people change through the years and I like changing things too much so the chance of canvases that I ordered staying on the wall for more than a few years wasn't very good.
I had thought about trying to do it myself but I just wasn't sure - I had an idea in my head as to how it would work, but I'm more of a visual person, I have to see it. So, one day I happened to be on Facebook and a photographer that I follow posted about creating her own canvas gallery! That sealed the deal and I was ready to give it a shot!!
It took me quite a while to decide on the lay out - there are lots of places you can look to come up with your lay out - Pinterest is a good one, the companies you can order canvas galleries through is another good resource and just a google search of "canvas gallery layouts" will give you a bunch of ideas!
So, after a lot of changing lay outs, changing which year of photos I would use, etc. I finally decided to do my gallery using the pictures we just had taken last fall. I used one of the online canvas companies to lay out my pictures and then I did a screen shot of the layout.
It was then time to order my prints. I've been using Nations Photo Lab for my recent print orders and I've been 100% pleased with every order!! They run great sales and I believe that all the prints that I ordered for this gallery cost me about $50.
Once my prints were ordered I started gathering my canvases - I knew that Michael's sells value packs of canvases so that is where I decided to start at. I happened to luck into a half off sale at Michael's so I was able to get a really good deal on my canvases. Had it not been for the sale I planned to use 40% off Michael's coupons that are in their ad each week. You can also go to their website and print the coupons off. They won't let you use more than one at a time but I've been known to make multiple trips to use as many as I could!
Once my prints arrive and I had gathered all my canvases I was ready to start putting everything together! I decided that I wanted the sides of my canvases to be black so using black craft paint (you can also buy canvases that are already black at a higher cost) I painted around the side of each canvas and one brush width on top around each side just so no white showed through. I did two coats. Craft paint usually dries pretty quick but I decided to give the canvases 24 hours before moving onto the next step which was adding my pictures.
When the canvases were ready I painted a coat of Modge Podge on the top of the canvas and then pressed the picture onto the canvas using my hands to smooth out any Modge Podge that may be clumped up under the picture. After I had everything smoothed out I began brushing Modge Podge across the top of the picture and using my brush to smooth any that had squished out on the sides of the canvas. The more Modge Podge you paint on (after allowing a bit of time to dry in between coats) the more texture you will get on your pictures. I only did two coats on top of mine so they just have a light texture.
After that all you need is a little dry time then you are ready to prepare your canvases for hanging. We decided to use little hooks and wire but you could probably easily use the little hooks that you hammer on the back of frames too.
We laid the gallery out on the floor and measured the width and height to determine the center and then started measuring for placement on the wall. We would make tiny pencil marks on the wall as we measured.
We also have a laser level which helped to keep the tops of the canvases in a straight line. We built our home and although we've been here 13 years I still have a very hard time putting holes in the walls so I had decided to use the little 3-M hooks to hang the pictures. I've used them before for Christmas decorations and haven't had any problems. Using them to hang my canvases was not successful and the canvases began falling from the wall. It could be that had we given the hooks 24 hours to set it would have gone better but by the time all the pictures fell I was done with using the hooks to hang them!
Canvases are very light so I really figured they would be fine on the hooks. We ended up hanging them with thumbtacks which worked out nicely. There are now holes in my wall but they are tiny holes that would be easy to patch if ever we needed to patch them.
I decided to do this canvas gallery in black and white (I love black and white any way) but since these pictures were taken at different locations I was worried about the different background colors so I opted to go with black and white. I'm anxious to do a color one and I'm already planning my next gallery which will likely be color photos. Another thing about this DIY gallery is that I really would not have a problem with changing out these photos in a year or so because I don't have much invested in the project, definitely far less than if I had ordered them. In fact, in all honesty you could probably just put new pictures right over top of these when you are ready to change it up!
It really was a fun project and I enjoy seeing the pictures on my wall every day! If anyone decides to take on this project and has any questions, please let me know!
