Decorating on a Budget: How to make your own Canvas Prints

There are many websites and stores that offer this service, but you yourself can make beautiful canvas prints at home and here is how.

What you will need:

Ink jet/ laser jet canvas (purchase at any office supply store or online for about $10-$15 for 10 sheets, so about $1.50 a sheet)

4 Stretcher bars (2) 5 inch and (2) 7 inch (purchase at any art supply store for less then $.50 each)

a printer

a staple gun (manual or electric powered)


Most household printers can only print on up to 8.5x11 inch paper. If you have a printer with a larger printable area you can make larger canvas print. For those of you who do not you will only be able to get a 5x7 inch stretched canvas print out of your printer.

1) Choose the picture you would like to print.

2) Use any photo software to adjust the size of your picture and crop it to the right size and shape. If you want the image to wrap around the sides of your canvas you will need to measure the sides of the stretcher bars you will use. Most bars are 3/4 inch which means your picture will need to be at least 6.5x9.5 inches (I like to add about half an inch to each side in case I make a mistake when stretching the canvas onto the bars, so, that's 7x10 inch pic)

3) load your printer with the printable canvas and print at your printer's highest quality.

4) Give the ink some time to dry. Then lay the canvas print side down on a flat surface.

5) Assemble your stretcher bars and lay the completed square on the back of your print (lift the sides to make sure you are on the print so you do not have any white showing on the finished product)

6) Start with one side, fold the canvas around the bars and starting in the center of the bar begin to staple it to the back of the stretcher bar leaving about a quarter of an inch at the corners unattached to the bar.

7) Repeat with the opposite side of the picture from where you started, pulling the canvas tight around the bars as you staple.

8) You should now have two of the sides of your picture stapled to the back of the bars. Now staple one of the other sides leaving the corners.

9) Once you have finished that side you will take one of the corners and fold it to one of the sides of the picture and around to the back of the canvas and staple it down. Do this with both corners.

10) Now finish the last side following steps 8 & 9.

You now have a beautiful stretched canvas you can show off in your home for about $3.50, a fraction of the cost of paying someone else to do it.