Burlap Canvas Home Dec Knock Off! (Ha! Ha!)

If you know anything about me, you KNOW that it really bothers me to pay full retail for anything. No, I'm not an extreme couponer, and I don't dumpster dive (usually), but why pay full retail when so many retailers offer discounts, etc. They are practically BEGGING you to buy their good without spending all of your money.

This philosophy came in pretty handy lately. We've been in the throes - a love/hate relationship deal - of a relocation which included the purchase of a fixer upper home. Don't get me wrong; I LOVE decorating and updating and being creative. I love anything DIY. That's just it....I love the fun part, the "putting it all back together" part. The prep and grunt work - I could leave to someone else.

But the end results? Oh my! I love seeing something come to life, reloved!  99% of everything that has been done to our new home has been done by us. To see some of the updates click on this link - http://tinyurl.com/lrwaqmg 

While creating a palette wall at the end of our stairway to the basement (which my kids did all by themselves!), my daughter and I ran across an industrial looking picture that we both agreed would be a nice addition to their wall. But, my frugality and my daughter's cheapness (yep, she's more frugal than I am) wouldn't allow us to spend $50.00 for a 16" x 20" picture. 

We both love the nail heads, the burlap and the reference to NYC. (Due to a girls only trip a few years ago) But for $50 we felt we could duplicate the look for a lot less.

Olivia chose a picture from our trip and had it printed out at an 11" x 14" size from Shutterfly. Cost? $4.00, including shipping. 

For the burlap background, we were going to purchase canvas stretcher bars and put them together to form the frame and stretch some burlap over it. The burlap was left over from another project. However, when we went to Michael's to buy the stretchers (with a 40% off coupon, of course!), we spied these in a center aisle. We almost missed them! So excited...and they were on sale!

We snagged an 16" x 20" and checked out! The burlap background cost us about $11. When we got home, it was time to put it all together. I glued the print of our picture in the center of the burlap frame with some regular wood glue, just because that's what I grabbed first. I weighted it down with some large paperback books until it dried.

Once the glue was dry, I trimmed the edges of the frame with some nailheads that we had left over from our updated couch project. http://tinyurl.com/lxkhwdj

Ta da!! I am very pleased with the end result. Actually, I think it looks better than the original, and it's personalized, using one of our memory photos!!  So, for a whopping cost of less than $15, we reproduced, and bettered the original pic that we both fell in love with. 

For the next post, I'm going to be sharing another knock off I used to cover up this ugly thing that stares you down when you walk in the back door!

 Ta ta til next time! Love to you all.