Photo Transfer To Canvas Tutorial

Pin It Last week, I finished my first photo transfer using Mod Podge. Now, let me show you how I did it.

Step One: Choose And Print Photos
I used my inkjet printer to make 8x10 prints of my photos on regular printer/copy paper.
NOTE: Other tutorials, suggest photocopying your image. This creates a more durable image, which I may try out next time.
Step Two: Picking The Background Color
After our recent bedroom updates, I decided to pull in my green/blue accent color for this project. I painted 11x14 canvases with several coats craft paint. The color is a homemade mixture.

Step Three: The Photo Transfer
After the paint had dried, I coated my photo (ink side) with Mod Podge and placed it on the canvas (Mod Podge side down).
To make sure I had good adhesion, I gently rubbed from the middle of the photo and then out to the corners. I also went over the paper with my rolling pin (still don’t have a brayer!) to remove any air bubbles. Then, I let this dry overnight.
Notice, you’ll see in the above photo that I did leave a few air bubbles and this did effect my transfer, so be forewarned!
Step Four: Removing The Paper

Using a spray bottle, I lightly coated the dried paper with water. Then, I began rubbing the paper off. This step takes some time and a little patience.

The above images were taken after one water/rubbing step. This step had to be repeated a few times to remove all traces of paper. As other bloggers have said, you will get a ghost like appearance to your image if paper is left on the canvas.
Step Five: Adding The Lyrics

After removing all of the paper from my image, I printed out the lyrics to Forever Young that I had saved as a Word document.
The words have to be printed in reverse. In Microsoft Word 2007, you can do this by going to Print>Properties>Finishing tab. Once there, you click “Mirror Image” under “Orientation” and then go back and print.
Next, I transferred the words, let them dry and removed the paper using the same technique as above.

Helpful Hint: The above IKEA kitchen utensil was pretty helpful when smoothing out the smaller transfer pieces.
Step Six: Finishing Up
Using water down gray craft paint, I added some age to the piece and wiped off excess paint to get the look I wanted. Then I added some homemade embellishments. (I’ll share how I made them soon!)
To seal it all up, I coated the entire piece with Mod Podge, let it dry, hung them up and admired my work.


I hope you enjoyed seeing how this project came together. It was so much fun learning a new craft and I look forward to tweaking the technique here and there to improve my result.
Of course, I’ll be sure to share the goods and more likely “bads” of my experimenting. :)
Thanks to all of you for your kind comments!

Linking this up to:
Make It Monday @ The Persimmon Perch
Meta Monday @ Between Naps On the Porch



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