My husband and I love to travel, and in the 5 years we have been married, we have built up quite a collection of photos from our trips. I was looking for a creative way to display some of these pictures and decided to do a collection of canvases down our hallway. I have seen several websites how to mod podge your pictures onto a canvas, like this one. I loved the idea but wanted to personalize it a little further so I added labels underneath to give it a gallery feel, and to tell a little bit about our journeys together. FYI: To order your photos printed on an 11×14 canvas starts around $30 a piece.  I made 6 canvases and spent about $60, saving about $120 by doing them myself. And here’s how:

First, paint the sides of your canvases. I did mine to match the pictures so the scene looks wrapped around the edges, but you can just do black too. Be sure to paint around onto the front and back of the canvas so no white will show when you hang them.

Spread mod podge.

Place picture and turn upside down and press to make sure the photo sticks.

Brush with a coat of mod podge, yes it looks scary, but don’t worry,  it won’t dry that way. Keep your lines going in one direction, as straight as possible.

Once the first coat dries, add another, lightly going across the grains of the last one. This will give you the cross-hatched look of a canvas.

Chop wood. I used poplar because its nice and smooth.

Sand any rough edges.

Paint black.

Print off your labels, cut them out and mod podge them onto the wood, then do a quick coat over the label to protect it.

Attach a picture hanger.

Hang your art!