Are you wondering where you can find art for your home without spending a lot of money? It�s not as difficult as you might think. Here are some of my favorite options.

Where to Find Art for Your Home

Hello Donna,

Another useful article so thanks very much for sure.

I once found a picture of a gypsy girl in a tatty frame at a junk shop, I had to throw away the frame for wood ants, but the print was so nice I had it put onto canvas and framed it. It really looks good and I can't think of a time when I have ever had visitors who have not remarked on it.

Since then I have fallen in love with canvas and have my family picture wall done (old photos now look good on stretched canvas) and the display is inviting instead of just being obligatory. By this I mean you want to look at the pictures and remember the time/s, ages and events they remind you of. If you investigate canvas a bit, the ways of using it are many and various and the effects are great. In one instance, I have put a picture on a sepia background and it does look good.

Still decorating my home and will probably not stop changing things around! Restless homemaker?

Cheers

Hi Lestie,

I love old prints and paintings of women - especially when they are in some kind of thoughtful repose. How did you put a print on canvas?

Your wall gallery sounds great. I'm thinking about doing a wall gallery of family photos in our upstairs hall later this year. Your idea is intriguing.

I'm always changing things around, too. My mom says my home looks different every time she comes over. It's true - I'm always giving the rooms a new purpose/arrangement. I think it goes with the territory when you love playing with your home!

Donna

Hi Donna,

So sorry that this slipped by me and I did not answer sooner. Oops!

I would guess the same system everywhere, but printing to canvas is very easy via a digital print service company who does it. I worked for a brief time for one such company and in that short while learnt about it there. They scanned the pictures in, then did what you wanted with Corel Draw (or Photoshop) then printed out on a Roland Printer. These are long bed printers that you can also do very fine and fancy vinyl cutouts on. Who knows if they have been replaced by something fancier? I don't.

Find a digital print shop who has one of these and voila you can do anything on canvas and reap the pleasure. Very unfortunately, with the usual greed factor to be taken into consideration, the costs of canvas printing is high here in SA even though around and up to 1000% profit can be a mark up ... yes, you did not read wrong, I have come across product selling for that.

Canvas printing is not an expensive thing, and not all companies are that bad, so just keep looking and don't be put off, it really is worth it, the end result is fabulous. But I guess those that do it charge the prices they charge because they can -they have the printer to do it. BUT, having said that too, I would not be surprised if HP or Lexmark haven't produced a printer these days that can do smaller pictures on a desktop printer.

And do not forget the pixels. Optical zoom on your camera jpeg etc is very important when it comes to quality of your end result. The print shop I worked for had a photography section and would take top quality family portraits etc.

SO! Do your homework, go via the equivalent of the Yellow Pages, look for the cheapest, CHECK samples of their work and go for it, it really is pretty and does look so good.

A stretched canvas just means unframed art/picture/photo but stretched over a wooden-backed cross frame - not a fuss at all, and if you are handy enough or 'crafty' enough with DIY, you could probably put your own canvas onto a frame yourself.

There is also the edging of the canvas - I have forgotten bits now, so can't say but you do get a museum finish where the edge of the canvas wraps around the edge and there are other ways where you can offset with a plain colour band or leave it raw canvas. All look good in the right context and with the right artwork.

Another canvas idea I have used is to take a canvas-rendered picture and paste it flat onto the wall like wallpaper and then I got an artistic friend of mine to paint up a wall edging as if it were part of an ancient cracked Roman Bath wall design. I did this with that detail from the Sistine Chapel - The Finger of God. Yes I know, many would say it is a cliche and a boring thing or usuitable for other reasons, but you could choose anything from Paul Klee to Dali's melting clocks to your children's art to Monet or an affirmation etc etc and so on forever. I copied the idea from a friend who had a wall in her dining room done eye level with panels from the Bayeux Tapestry - the bit where Harold has the arrow in his eye.

Well there we are, no answer then a long one.

Cheers now!

P S I said they did what you want with Corel Draw - but this was a correction service as it were. I for one had some very old family photos that had been damaged with water, torn out of albums (?) and slightly faded. Well, I was thrilled to save them by putting them onto canvas with no tear marks or damage etc. as they look great in sepia background, still olde worlde ... and I still marvel at the pics of my Great great Granny as a young girl.

Hello there,

Someone (thanks Tracey) emailed to ask about putting glass on top of the canvas print in the frame to protect it.

Yes, I have seen this done but I do not like this look. For me the pleasure of a canvas print is to see the grain of the canvas so no, I would not frame my canvasses with glass - reflective or non-reflective. I think it would be guilding the lily.

Cheers

Thanks so much for providing the details, Lestie. Love your ideas!

Another inexpensive idea I want to try I saw in a southern living magazine. They had taken an old letter envelope that had been in the homeowners family and had it blown up poster size at a copy shop. The large copy was put in a nice frame. It made for a great conversation piece that is very personal. The same idea could probably be used to enlarge other personal family mementos.
I just need more room on my walls!

Hello AKLisa and all and all

Great idea and I can guess what you mean. I have a friend who did something like this (and I have really wanted to copy her) but just haven't got around to it ... or is it a round Tuit?

She chose a series of her favourite illustrated newspaper jokes/cartoons and has had these blown up and on her walls in row at eye level. She has Dagwood and Blondie, Fred Basset, Hagar the Horrible, Andy Capp and Flo, two Garfields and a couple of Dilberts.

I visit her often and even though the jokes are old in that I have seen them time and time again, the drawings are good and the expressions captured brilliant, I always smile at them.

They are black and white, unframed and as you say, an inexpensive and personal choice though maybe not as interesting as the idea you speak of above.

I really must get around to doing something like this, I did promise myself so now it's up to me!

Cheers

Wow, Lestie, you know a lot about this topic! I am impressed with your responses here!

Hi Jill

Thanks for your kind words ... and you know how it is, when a person works at place very often we get so involved in the work there that we learn a lot. Now because it was interesting to me, I just never seemed to forget it.

Had I not worked at that print shop I would not have learnt about the fab work that the Roland printer does or about canvas work or blinds and floor finishes and whole wall papers made from anything, especially favourite photographs.

I was also so pleased that Donna on Budget Decor site gave a perfect opportunity of telling more.

What a lucky fish I am to have found BellaOnline!

Cheers now