Transfer Pictures to Wood!

My 12-week-old is my parents' first grandchild. They are nuts over him. Especially my mom. She is just the nuttiest grandma you can imagine-- all goo goo and gah gah, if you know what I mean. It's cute.. I love watching her with my Little Bear :)

So, for Christmas, I knew I had to give her a large picture of the little guy. Getting photos printed on canvas isn't expensive these days, but when I saw this tutorial for transferring pictures to a wood block on Pinterest, I knew I had to try it. I wasn't quite sure how it would turn out-- but I can't resist a cheap DIY project!

The tutorial is great, but for whatever reason, I just prefer written instructions rather than videos. Plus, I thought I'd share my experience and write this up in detail.

First, here's what you need:

A block of wood. I used a few pieces of pine wood I had left over from when we were building our house. My dad laughed at me for being a hoarder.. but he ain't laughing now! I found great use for my wood pieces! ;-)

A picture printed with a laser printer. Mirrored, if you want it to look like the original when you're done. Ditzy me forgot about this when I first got these printed.. and it was a bit of a long hassle after that to get it right. Long story short-- I ended up going to the print shop 3 times in one day.

Gel medium. I had no idea what this was, and went to the craft store rather hesitantly, unsure where to look for this. I found it in the oil and acrylic paint section. You know, for painting pictures, not walls. I had a 50% off coupon to Michael's, so I scored this for $7. Woot!

So take your wood block, and apply the gel medium with a paintbrush or something similar. The key here is to try applying it as evenly as possible... Not too much (makes for lots of obvious bubbles and folds) and not too little (keeps the picture from transferring completely). I didn't always do this, and here's the result:

This can make for a cool effect at the picture's edges-- but it wasn't exactly what I was going for on my baby's face.

When it's all fairly even, stick the picture, face down, onto the wood.

Here comes the crucial part. Even out the bubbles as best you can. The paper gets rather wet and starts to tear if you rub too hard, so this isn't exactly fool-proof.. But I most of mine turned out fine, so I'm sure y'all can do it too. ;-)

Now ya gotta be patient and let this dry overnight (or until it's completely dry.. took mine about 5-6 hours). It's a good thing I made these exactly 2 days before Christmas, and had plenty of other things to keep me busy. I'm not too good with the whole patience thing.

After all that waiting, here comes the reward: you get to see your artwork! Not before putting some elbow grease in there, though. Grab a wet sponge or rag, and soak your paper. You can probably hold it under running water. I did, but only for a couple of minutes, before I freaked out, and wondered if I was ruining the picture. It looked completely fine to me, But I did not have time on my side, so I couldn't risk ruining these.

Rub alllll the pretty paper off with your sponge. It'll take a while. Even when it looks like it's perfectly clean and glossy-- after it dries, you'll see lots of little white specks all over the picture. It took me several rounds of rubbing and cleaning to get it right.

Resist the urge to grab a scouring pad. It will scratch your picture. Not that I tried it or anything (who, me?!)

All that hard work pays off, though-- in the end, you get to admire your amazing creation. The best part about DIY, isn't it??

If you'd like, you can finish these off with Mod Podge or maybe a wood sealer. I wanted to-- but I was short on time, so I decided to leave them the way they were. I figured they'd be used for decoration, anyway. I don't normally spend much time touching the pictures on my wall. If you do, you should probably give these a durable finish ;-)

So here you are.. Simple, pretty, and cheap! My little can of gel medium was enough for about 8-10 8x10 pictures. The wood was free. That makes.. hmm... $0.70 per 8x10?? Hecks yeah! My kinda project! :-D


I'm linking this up to:

Rae Gun Ramblings
Today's Creative Blog
Robin's Creative Cottage
Home Stories A to Z
Tip Junkie
Southern Product Queen
The Shabby Creek Cottage
Blue Cricket Design