Huge, Inexpensive Photo Art

I pin a lot of things on Pinterest.  Probably too much, if I'm being honest, but it's fun!  I have a board specifically for my short list of projects that I ACTUALLY want to do and these huge engineering print photos have been calling my name for months.  Last summer, we put up ledge shelves in the entry and in the dining room, but because our downstairs is mostly just one big space, it felt like too much.  So we just sat on it and left the shelves empty for months while I dragged my feet.  I decided in the fall to get the photos, but just kind of sat on the photos for a bit, too. (Are you sensing a theme? Projects take time around here!)  We finally decided to take down one of the shelves about a month ago to make room for the big photos and left one ledge for these photos to rest on.  

Here's the general idea for how to make them:

- Choose your photos and make them black and white.  (If you're not sure how, picmonkey.com is really easy to use.)

- Save the files on a flash drive

- Measure where you plan to put them and determine the size you want (the shortest edge can be up to 48" wide)

- Take the saved files to FedEx Office (or your local printing/office store, that just happens to be the one closest to me) and ask them to print as an engineering print.  The guy at my store was super helpful in checking dimensions for me to make sure it would work. They were under $3 each for the size I chose. 

- Decide where/how you want to mount them.  You can do it at home on foam board or plywood with spray adhesive, but for not much more than it would cost to buy foam-board or plywood, I chose to take them to Hobby Lobby and have them dry-mounted on foam-board in the framing department.  Because the framing department wrote the total up as one item, I got to use a 50% off coupon for both and the total cost was just under $20 for the dry mounting.  That makes the total just over $25 for two huge pieces of wall art that are 36" x 24" each and I'm super happy about that!

- A friend (Hi Molly!) who saw them was surprised that they didn't come home with hooks on the back, she said that she's had dry mounting done a bunch at Michael's and always gets picture hanging hooks on the back of them, so I might ask next time.  BUT, they're so light that I just got some mounting putty (the stuff you used in college to hang posters) and it worked like a charm.  Add some to the back and get them up on the wall and you're done!

Here are the posts I used for ideas and more detailed instructions if you're thinking of trying this yourself, they all have fantastic instructions and tips to help: 

-DIY Large Photo Prints at life in grace

-Giant Picture Tutorial and Giant Picture For Cheap (Take 2) at Sugar Bee Crafts

-Huge Prints For Only $4 at Little Green Notebook

p.s. I finally made a Facebook page for the blog! 
Come Like the page! 

:Linking up to Grace at Home at Imparting Grace!:

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