Good Morning Friends,

I have another awesome blogger to introduce you to who so kindly offered to help during my surgery recovery. Give a warm welcome to Debi, another Canadian blogger who blogs over at Debi Collinson Interiors (formerly Add Value To Your Home). Debi is going to share her Easy and Affordable DIY Wall Art with you today. Whether you are staging a house for resale, redecorating a room on a budget, or making inexpensive gifts - this is a great idea!

Without further ado, take it away Debi...

Easy and Affordable DIY Wall Art

I'm Debi from Debi Collinson Interiors and I'm writing this guest post today for Marie who's recovering from surgery. Although I haven't met Marie in real life yet, we have lots in common. We're both DIYers, have both staged houses, and we're both Canadians. That's a lot eh?

I quite often get restless of my home décor and want to change things up a bit. (I'm not the only one that does this right?) I find one of the quickest and most affordable ways to do this is through pictures. Pictures can really set the tone for a room, be it dramatic, mellow and relaxing, adventurous or seasonal.

So the way I do this is by creating my own wall art. It uses my old canvas prints that are either dated or too scratched to use, it gives my room a new look, and fits my budget (triple score!) If you don't have an old canvas, you can either purchase them at a craft store like Micheal's (be sure to grab a coupon online first) or I've bought some canvases on clearance at great prices at a home décor store that were all scratched. It doesn't matter if they're scratched because you're covering them up. You just need the structure of the frame to be intact unless you're handy and can fix them.

Choosing the Fabric

The next step is choosing the right fabric. You can use almost any texture and thickness of the fabric, but there are a couple of things to keep in mind. If the fabric is too light, you may need to put white fabric underneath if you're using an old canvas so that the old print doesn't show through. When you're folding, you'll be folding two fabrics together. A little tricky at first but easy to get the hang of it. If the fabric is too thick, you might find it hard to make the corners flat.

When choosing your fabric at the store, roll the bolt open to the size of the canvas that you're working with. This way, you can picture (pardon the pun) what the final product will look like. For my fabric, I wanted a Fall type fabric that would suit our cooler temperatures but wouldn't "scream" Fall. I choose a contemporary Ikat pattern in fall colors. It will give my room the facelift I desperately need and get us into the mood for the Fall season.

Cutting the Fabric

Put your canvas on top of the table. Lay the fabric on top of it. Does your fabric have a pattern? Is there a picture that you want to show? Or is it abstract and it doesn't matter where you place it?

If your fabric has a pattern or picture, give some thought as to how you want it to show on the canvas. For my picture, I centered the dark brown shape as the center. I then gently folded the fabric underneath so I could see what it would look like. Then I pinned the lines where the outside of the frame as my guide.

Before you start stapling your fabric to your frame, make sure you iron any creases or wrinkles out first. If your canvas has a bright picture and your fabric is on the thin side, you may need to have white fabric or an old white sheet underneath so that the pattern doesn't show through.


The white fabric will stop any of the pictures from the canvas from coming through.


Now that you have marked where the edge of your frame is going to go, the fabric is ironed and lined with white fabric if necessary, you are ready to cut.

Cut your fabric giving yourself a 3" margin around the entire frame. This will give you enough fabric to fold and staple into your canvas. Start stapling using a staple gun on one side of the longest length of the frame. Put in a few staples starting with the center, but avoid the corners for now. I used staples that were 5/16" or 8 mm in length. If staples are too long, they may not completely go into the frame and could potentially scratch your walls. How do I know this?

Then very slightly stretch or smooth your fabric and staple the other side of the longest part of your frame starting in the middle and alternating staples on each side. Avoid the corners for now. If you need to remove any staples, a staple remover that you use for paper will do the trick! Your canvas should look like this...


Now you're ready to staple the ends again slightly stretch or smooth out the fabric first before you staple. Leave enough space around the corners. Depending on your fabric, you will most likely need to cut away some of the thickness before you fold your corner. I cut roughly a 1" square. If you're not sure, cut LESS first. You can always cut off more if you need too.


Fold the corners so that they fold flat and the end looks like a line. It takes practice at first but once you get the hang of it, you'll like the clean flat look.


Here's a close up of the final product. Pretty quick and easy?


Here's how it looks in our family room.


Below is another contemporary Fall DIY Canvas that I had done previously. The fabric is originally from Ikea.


You can have a lot of fun with this. Here's a picture that I did for staging condos. It was a hit among 20 something women and teenage girls. Again, fabric from Ikea.


If you want a more mellow and relaxing mood, you can have a subtle canvas and pop it against a colorful wall like this reading nook in a master bedroom.


If you get restless with your décor from time to time like I do and want to mix things up a bit or change the mood to suit the season, you can always redo your canvas. It's pretty quick, easy to do, and fits the budget!

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Thank you so much, Debi, for sharing your Easy and Affordable DIY Wall Art with my readers today! I appreciate the thorough tutorial you provided as well. As a fellow Home Stager, I know the value of this trick to add some instant Wow factor into a room.

I urge you to pop over and give Debi a warm hello on her awesome blog at Add Value To Your Home

Debi is a Designer who renovates “fixer-uppers” to flip or to rent. She staged houses for 10 years. She has seen houses at their best and their worst. Debi passes on her knowledge to help people Add Value to their Home while making their home a stunning retreat at the same time.