Faux Custom Art in Fifteen Minutes

Have you ever noticed how incredibly expensive it is to buy large pieces of art for your walls? I don’t know – maybe it’s not that expensive if you’re not on a budget or you can’t think of a better way to spend $125 than on a one-of-five-hundred-thousand print from Home Sense. 

Don’t get me wrong – I love having artwork on the walls. I wish that we could afford more of the real stuff by local artists & photographers. We have a few small prints done by Annie Ling and an encaustic work by Petra Zantingh. We also have a fantsatic photo of Amsterdam from IKEA on our bedroom wall – but it’s not especially unique or meaningful.

We had a unique problem when we were staging our house  last month: we used to have a washer & dryer up in our kitchen because we rented out the basement where the original washer & dryer were. We were told that we needed to get rid of the kitchen laundry for staging, but then we were left with behind-the-scenes vent, outlet, and bad patching job from when it was put in. Not so pretty in a room that was supposed to be a focal point of our house. 

I spent two weeks looking everywhere for something that would fit the strange space, but the problem was that in addition to being strange dimensions, it also needed to have a 1.5″ clearance from the wall because the vent pipe stuck out from the wall. Then it struck me – let’s just make our own! I’d done it once before for our old bedroom, so I did it again for this – I think that this faux custom art is a win! 

The thing that takes the longest is is making the frame, but if you’ve got a handy husband or a saws-all and an angle cutting box – a Mitre Box, if you want to get technical – it’s a snap. 

Materials Needed: 

• lengths of wood:  You can use 1×2, 1×4, 2×4, whatever you like. Scrap, pallet, new – as long as you have enough to make all four sides of your frame! **
• enough fabric to cover the size of frame that you’re building, plus an extra 3″ on each side – so that’s the dimension of the finished product + 6″ on width + 6″ length. I prefer using upholstery fabric or outdoor fabric since they’re stronger and thicker than other fabrics.  
• Staple gun
• Mitre saw or mitre box & saw

1. Decide on the size that you’d like your art to be and mark your wood. Don’t forget the most important rule when it comes to woodworking: measure twice, cut once! If you’re not confident, measure three times! Make a sketch to help you visualize if you’re doing it right! Make 45 degree cuts with the help of a mitre saw or mitre box & saw. **

2. Arrange the cut wood pieces as you would like it to look on a flat surface. Using a staple gun, staple each of the 45 degree angles together – starting with one staple in each corner, then adding a couple more on each joint to secure. We put braces on ours because apparently our mitre saw is broken and a 45 degree angle on the saw is not a true 45 degree angle. **

3. Lay out your material print side down on the ground. Centre the frame on top of the material. Starting at the centre of one of the sides, pull the material over the frame and staple once. Move to the opposite side of the frame and do the mirror of what you just did, but pull it semi-tight before stapling. Do the same on the other two sides of the frame, pulling the fourth side as tight as possible. 

Work your way around the frame again and again, always mirroring the staple on the other side and pulling each side taught. 

When you get to the corners, trim some of the extra fabric off and fold the fabric in diagonally from the corner. Use a few staples to secure the corners as flat as possibly. 

** You can use an existing picture frame to stretch the material over if you have the right size & shape, but I personally like the look of the above, better.

Hang your custom art on the wall, sit back & enjoy! 

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Jenn vanOosten

I live in Hamilton, Ontario, and love my city. I'm a Netflixer, choral music geek, bookworm, inventor of recipes (I take Artistic Licence on EVERYTHING that I make), wife of one, mother of two, and owner of a neurotic Schnauzer. I respect people who respect others. I love good food that's well done, but my favourite lunch is KD & hotdogs. With ketchup. I'm addicted to Clearance Shopping. I will ALWAYS get the product that I want at the price that I want, eventually.

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