DIY Mounted Wall Photos

We recently had our family photos taken.  The cost have canvas of wall art made can be $20-50 each!  My favorite type are the "mounted photos" which are mounted to black foam board. Canvas wraps are nice too.  Anyway, luckily the cost to have high quality prints made is really low, and its pretty easy to mount them yourself.  The whole project only cost me about $25. Here is how I did it:

1. Edit your photos with a program like Photoshop.  I decided to make a wall of photos from our photoshoot using two size photos:  8"x8" and 8"x12".    8x12 is the full frame size of the original photos.

2. Lay out your grid of photos.  I used Autocad to play around with patterns and such.  You can do this by hand with a ruler and paper.

3.  Print your digital photos online from someone like snapfish or walmart etc.  I use whcc.com.  Prints are about $2-3 each.

4.  Go to Home Depot or Lowes and buy 1/2" thick MDF.  This is in the lumber section and is a heavy engineered sheet of wood. Its compressed pulp, so its very flat and smooth compared to plywood.  Most of the stores here in Colorado sell smaller cut down pieces that are 2ftx4ft so you don't have to buy a full 4ftx8ft sheet.  It costs about $25 for a full sheet.

5. Cut the MDF on the table saw.  Cut the wood rectangles at least 1/4" smaller than your print sizes.

6.  Drill a hole in the back of the MDF, but don't drill all the way through.   This will be your hanging hole.  Make sure the diameter of the hole is big enough for the nails you use to hang your photos.  I used tiny little pin nails.

7. Buy a can of cheap black spray paint. Walmart has cans of generic brand for $1 or $2 each.

8. Spray the edges of your MDF rectangle with spray paint and let dry

9. Use a spray adhesive, like 3M Spray Mount and spray the back of your photo, and the front of your MDF.

10. Let dry until tacky.  With the photo face down, flip the MDF over and stick it to the photo, leaving a small reveal of photo sticking out around all edges (because your MDF was cut slightly smaler than the print).

11.  Put the photo face down again on a clean piece of wood, such as the remaining MDF you have.

12. Use a box cutter with a fresh blade and slice off the extra photo edges sticking out.  Press hard and make nice clean edges.

13.  Transfer your collage layout of mounting locations to your wall, put your pin nails in at a slight angle so they stick out pointing up a bit. This will help the photos from falling off the wall. (if you are really fancy, you can use a keyhole router bit)