An Awesome, Cheap, Quick, Fun Project with HUMONGOUS Wow Factor!

First of all. . . my finished project:  A gorgeous 3ft. x 3ft wall extravaganza of my two sweet boys.

See for yourself!

Gorgeous isn't it!  I know!!  Approximate cost of this picture is. . . drum roll please. . . $12.

Here is how. . .

1)  Find a wall in your home that is lonely for a gorgeous, bigger than life print.

2)  Find your awesome photo that you want to use.  Convert it to black and white.  If possible add a black border around your photo while in your editing program.  On my first try I did not put a black border around my photo and found that it did not look nearly as "finished."  The border really adds so much to the project in my opinion.

3)  Put your jpg file on a jump drive.  Drive to Kinko's.  Tell them the humongous size you want.  The print can be no wider than 4ft but can be as tall as you like.  I chose 3ft. x 3ft. for mine.  The cost at Kinko's is .75 cents a square foot so therefore my print cost $6.75.  I waited about 3 minutes and shaazaaamm! my print was rolled up and ready to go.  They do also offer color at a little over $7 a square foot.

4)  Go to Home Depot or a like store.  Purchase foam board.  It comes 4ft x 8ft.  The cost for one 4x8 was  approximately $7.  It's obviously a HUGE piece to fit in the car.  I had to break mine in half to fit it in.  Get some spray glue (cost me $2.99).  Get some black craft paint (cost me .97 cents).  Get a roll of mounting tape (cost $1.99).

5)  Hurry home to complete this project in no time flat!

6)  Line your photo perfectly on your foam board.  Lay something over the corners of the photo (and in the middle) to keep it in place.  Lift up the photo on one edge and spray a line of spray glue on the foam board JUST along the space where the first 3 inch or so edge of your photo will lay.  Do this for all four sides of your photo.  DO NOT SPRAY GLUE THE MIDDLE OF THE PICTURE.  I learned this the first try at this project.  If you spray the entire foam board you will very likely have horrible wrinkles in your photo when you lay it down on the glue.  I found it was better to just spray the outside edges.

7)  Get your exacto knife or a knife with a smooth edge.  Cut your photo out.  Get all the little dust bunnies off the edges of the foam board.  Break open the black craft paint.  Paint all four sides with a small brush.

8)  After it dries put some mounting tape on the WALL first.  Press it on firmly then take your finished project and place on top of the mounting tape.  (My first attempt I put the tape on the PICTURE first but found out that when you place it on the wall, because it's styrofoam, you cannot firmly press it on the wall.  Therefore, it falls down overnight!  :(

9)  You are DONE.  Took me (with my hubby's help) maybe 25 minutes, start to finish.  Awesome.

First are some photos of the finished 2nd attempt that turned out so well.  Following these pictures is a picture of my 1st attempt that bombed.  Note my mistakes that you want to learn from. . .

nice, clean, finished looking painted black sides

my supplies. . . 

EXACTO time!













Yay!!!  Lookin' great!!





And now. . . the poor first attempt:

Yuck!  See what I mean?  Sides weren't painted. . . and no black border around photo.  And, you can't see it well in this picture, but there were lots of wrinkles from spraying the entire board with glue.  

This is an awesome project to try at home OR your business maybe.  Just think of the cheap wall advertising you could do.  I am currently designing one for our gym.  I'll post my results when I'm finished for sure.

DISCLAIMER:  While my photo looks AWESOME even on an engineer's print (this is just plain paper, not photo paper) it is due mostly to the fact that I have a professional grade, high megapixel SLR camera.  Also due to the fact that my boys are so freakin' cute!  (I'm not biased am I?)  Obviously, it does help if you have a quality photo to begin with when you are going to be blowing it up so large.

But. . .never fear. . . if you need help in this area, you could always hire me to take the picture for you (wink! wink!).

Let me know how your project turns out.  Happy Weekend!