The Shutterfly iPhone app lets you print 4×4 and 8×8 prints straight from Instagram. Since many of my daughter’s baby pictures are taken with my cell phone I was excited to take advantage of this. I wanted to hang some pictures on my bare walls- and I think I got this idea from Pinterest (where else?). It’s easy, you paint the edges of a canvas black and stick the photo on with decoupage glue.

Supplies:
Newspaper or something to protect your workspace
Instagram prints or other
Canvas to match print sizes
Decoupage glue (matte or gloss)
2 foam brushes
Black acrylic paint
X-acto knife

Hobby lobby has 8×8 canvases in white and after some intense searching, I found a small section of already black canvases. They had the 4×4 size I was looking for! That saves me a step! The larger size was $5.59 and the smaller black ones are $4.99 for two. But, I’m pretty sure I got the larger ones on sale.

Step 1: For the white canvases, paint the edges of the frame black with a foam brush. Mine needed two coats. TIP: paint slightly inside the frame so that you don’t run the risk of having any white showing. If the canvas is already black, proceed to step 2.

Step 2: Once dried, paint the canvas over with a thin coat of decoupage glue using the second foam brush. Center the desired photo onto the canvas and rub flat with your fingers so it sticks to the canvas.

Step 3: Trim. My prints were slightly larger then the canvases, so I had to trim them down. To do that, I turned my canvas over and ran an x-acto knife down the edge. CAUTION: You may need to wait for the glue to dry before doing this or the photo may slide. Also, be careful not to cut the edge of the canvas. This happened to me on one but I just touched it up with black paint.

Step 4: Apply a thick coat of decoupage glue to the photo and the canvas sides. The glue should be thick and the brushstrokes as smooth as you can make them. TIP- don’t allow the glue dry on the foam brush or else it may cause residual clumps on the next canvas.

Step 5: Set aside to dry, about 1 hour. Once the glue is clear, they are done!

On mine, I used matte glue because it shows less of the unavoidable brush stroke imperfections. You can really only see the brush strokes up close, but I like those little imperfections. It gives them character.