A make-shift canvas on the cheap!

After making the photos on canvas for my mom a few weeks ago. I decided that, of course, I want some for myself! I only had one 8x10 canvas leftover and wanted to do some smaller pictures too. I went perusing through the linen closet where I stash all my project leftovers and found a massive stack of cheap unpainted wood frames from Michaels that I bought one day thinking "I'll find something to do with these". And now, who knows how many years later I finally found a use for them.

So here's whatcha need todo:

A cheapo frame{I'm pretty sure these were $1 or less a piece, I have 20 of them so they must have been cheap!} and fabric, canvas would be the obvious and best choice for this but I didn't have any laying around so I used cheap quilters cotton.

Cut your fabric so that it's about 1 inch larger than the frame you're using - as you'll see in the pics below I cut  way more than an inch larger and it was too much!

Staple the fabric on the back side of the frame on one side then the opposite side pulling tight as you staple the second side.

For the two remaining sides you want to fold the edges like you're wrapping a present. If your frame has nice sharp right angled corners this will be easy-peasy, my frame is rounded so I had to play with it to make sure I didn't end up with pleated corners.

After it's all stapled and nice and taunt you can trim away all the excess fabric. Excuse my messy cuts, I couldn't find my scissors and was using a pair I found in the garage - it's the back no one's going to see anyway {except the internet, of course}

As you can see the longer I use the staple gun the more staple-happy I get! 

The last step is to slap some paint on this puppy. I used white acrylic paint but you can use whatever you prefer. Since I'm probably going to use these with black and white photos I'll be painting this one black over the white later. Paint the front and all 4 sides. If you're using something other than canvas you'll want to flip it over and sweep any paint that seeped through off with your brush.

After it's dry you have a super-cheap cute little make-shift canvas!