DIY Instagram Art

Couple of weeks ago my friend was visiting me and we reorganized my bedroom. Amidst this hassle, I showed my various thrift store finds including a set Disney Princess- wall art pieces. I enthusiastically (spitting and spastically waving hands) explained that I planned to make them into either Christmas or Halloween art pieces, just haven’t decided which one yet. Then he asked “how about for once making something that you could use all year round?”.

*Stunned silence*

And you know what? That’s what I did and here’s the how:

Materials:

Wall art or canvasses to pimp
Spray Paint
Something to protect the ground/floor from paint
Photos/prints you want to display
Paper glue stick
X-acto knife or scissors

These are the originals. They are about 1 cm thick MDF and the images are paper. These types of kids’ wall art are easy to find at thrift stores and flea markets. If I remember correctly, I paid 1 euro each for these.

I didn’t sand or prime the images but I did skimp on the spray paint. I had forgotten that the one sold at Prisma is cheap BUT HAS AN AWFUL COVERAGE! Save yourself some trouble and invest on good quality spray paint.

You don’t have to spray paint the entire thing. Just the edges. In the end I had to do three coats to hide most of the pink, however the princesses were still visible but it doesn’t matter as they will be hidden under the whatever image you use.

Selecting the images and editing them took the longest. I used a mix of my Instagram-photos and ones I’ve taken with my camera but had edited using free Instagram-filters for Photoshop. I don’t remember where I got mine but THIS looks like a good set. I then made all the images 27x27cm because I wanted to have a small white border on the art pieces. I then had them laser printed at the local library on A3 paper. In my neck of woods, they are 40 cents a piece. I printed 10, just to have some choice.

The best way to trim is with an x-acto knife and using a mat but in a pinch, scissors are OK too. I had to trim a little extra because the library machine re-scaled my carefully designed pieces to fit the paper. It added an extra cm on each side but it was nothing too tricky to fix.

To attach the images on the painted MDF-pieces, I used regular paper glue stick. You only need to spread it on the edges. After laying the glued images on the MDF, use your sleeve to carefully remove air bubbles or wrinkles. Do this to all the pieces and voilà, you have beautiful art to admire! Here are the finished pieces:

Some tips…Instagram photos have enough picture quality for this kind of art. Even though close by there’s pixellation, the whole IG-filter thingmake images blurry so it works with the style. If possible, choose a satin finish paper for printing. There was no choice at my local library but if you use a print shop, you should have options.

I hope you liked it!

-Thrifty Finn-

P.S. You can find the Paris-images used above to print for free HERE!